Spring in Croatia

[Gerald Ochsenhofer]

Here loads of pics (aka close to overkill) from excursions in Croatia this spring (End of March / Beginning of April) - even though the weather never seemed "perfect" (most of the time cold and windy), we found much more than expected

Uh and in case my supervisor reads along here - i'm also productive!

IMG_0249.jpg (73.68 KiB) Viewed 5823 times

For warming up, let's start with a, at least i think, easy searching - pic. I found 7 of that guys, but as far as i failed to find the big black one on Jürgens last searchpost, i'm not not so sure if I should rather switch to cows or other bigger stuff

Btw, sometimes you have to choose shitty places..

At the moment i'm more on the clicking-lizards line, because they're usually really thankful in-situ models:

Because of the early time in the year, they were really sleepy and quite easy to approach.

This was one of the greatest findings: Telescopus crawling on/between stones around noon (end of March)

And most-likely the finding-of-the-year at the very beginning of the season

So actually the year's already a full success
For relaxing: Euscorpius sp.:

Did i mention that i like to click lizards?

Amongst all that siculus, also a single melisellensis

The first (juvenile/subadult) ammodytes, Attila saw it out of the driving (!) car basking on the base of a stonewall

And it was not the only one, summed up we found on the excursions around 10 of them

And also quite a lot of Malplon, which really surprised us, because weather was either really cold and windy (~ 12° airtemperature and Bora, around +2 in the night) or completely shitty. But they didn't seem to care, as long as the sun was outside, they were too.

Ah, jp, there's a treasure everywhere!

in this case a house centepede (Scutigera coleoptrata)

some tired trilineatas

another Malpolon

Uh - besides crazy horses (we nearly got run over..) one of the greatest dangers on fieldtrips: bloody bears with horns

if you're along the seaside all the time, there comes the day you even start to photograph that..

and one last ammodytes pic for our viperaphile friends (in this case the same specimen as before).
To sum it up, really nice trips and many thanks to Boris & the Crew for everything!

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Verrrry nice!!!

What's up with the black cheek of that young trili?

I'm curious what the purpose of your tours is/was... Something with Plecoptera?

( Is there only 1 melisellensis among these pictures? Still stays a bit difficult for me )

[Ray Hamilton]

Nice post with some good shots. Looks like a productive stay.

Really enjoyed the Malpolon shots. Thanks.

[Peter Oefinger]

Great!

Did i mention that i like to click lizards?

Herping without lizards is like food without salt

Interesting that the Telescopus was active during the day.

[Jürgen Gebhart]

Herping without lizards is like food without salt

What`s wrong with food without salt???

Gerald is the pic of the big Malpolon a "in Situ" shot?

fallax and situla are still on wishlist, Congrats!

[Rok Grzelj]

Great finding the cow
...but im sooooooo jealous of telescopus,malpolon and situla

[Mario Schweiger]

( Is there only 1 melisellensis among these pictures? Still stays a bit difficult for me )

Seems to be NOT!
There´s only one

Mario

[Gerald Ochsenhofer]

Thanks for the answers!

@ Jeroen - no, it isn't the purpose, but I'm also writing writing diplomatheses on makrozoobenthos at the moment, and that's what I should also do in my free time
For the cheek of the trilineata - i have no idea unfortunately.
In my opinion they were, as Mario also wrote, clearly all siculus, except for the one. Which one did you doubt? I can look it up, because i most likely have another picture from a bit different angle.

@ Peter - I knew that i can count on you

@Jürgen - no, unfortunately no Even though this would have been the only one, where it maaybe would have been possible.

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Which one did you doubt?

None, just testing myself.

[Sandra Panienka]

Great post. I can understand that you love to get pics of the lizards, the P. siculus are intriguingly beautiful with those yellow throats. I also love the Malpolon pics, that's just a great looking snake species.