Herping in the Vaud and Franche-Comté

[Guillaume Gomard]

Hi all,

Yesterday I met with Bastien Comment and his friend Yannick for a common herping session in the Vaud (Switzerland) and Franche-Comté (France) regions. It was the occasion to visit some good vipers' spots and also to look for Western whip snakes, and even more...The weather was sunny with moderate temperatures (a bit more than 22°C in the afternoon). Below are some pics of our observations (better quality by enlarging them):

This massive guy had really nice supralabial scales as can be seen here:

Close to Besançon, we also observed 2 young H.viridiflavus and a lot of their molts in a limited area:

Thanks again to Bastien & Yannick for their welcome, I'm sure we will have a good time again in a near futur!

G.

[Jürgen Gebhart]

very nice Asp!

The Natrix looks like a huge monster, how long was it?

[Guillaume Gomard]

Hi Jürgen,

I think the Natrix was about 80cm long, which is already a good size, and also very large (it actually had something in its stomach). As you noticed, the size of its head was impressive too. Of course it was also a talented actor as you can expect from this snake:

[Jürgen Gebhart]

Just 80 cm???? It looks much bigger!!!

[Mario Schweiger]

Very nice asp and Natrix.
But I would like to tend its a female - from head proportions.
Mario

[Guillaume Gomard]

But I would like to tend its a female - from head proportions

thanks for the information

Just 80 cm???? It looks much bigger!!!

Well, maybe I underestimated it. Let's say from 80 to 100cm (Bastien can correct me if I'm wrong).

[Aleksandar Simovic]

Natrix is definitely female, good pictures, nice aspis

[Bastien Comment]

Hello all,

Sorry for the late message but I've just had quite a big week. So here are some more pics of that day. Indeed I would agree with the 80 to 100 cm estimation Guillaume. Jürgen, I've put a pic on which is my cap to help you see it. More than its size, it's how large this Natrix was that impressed us.