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Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:27 pm
by 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! :roll:
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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 ;-)
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Btw, sometimes you have to choose shitty places..
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At the moment i'm more on the clicking-lizards line, because they're usually really thankful in-situ models:
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Because of the early time in the year, they were really sleepy and quite easy to approach.
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This was one of the greatest findings: Telescopus crawling on/between stones around noon (end of March)
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And most-likely the finding-of-the-year at the very beginning of the season
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So actually the year's already a full success :-)
For relaxing: Euscorpius sp.:
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Did i mention that i like to click lizards?
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Amongst all that siculus, also a single melisellensis
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The first (juvenile/subadult) ammodytes, Attila saw it out of the driving (!) car basking on the base of a stonewall
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And it was not the only one, summed up we found on the excursions around 10 of them
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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.
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Ah, jp, there's a treasure everywhere! ;-)
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in this case a house centepede (Scutigera coleoptrata)
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some tired trilineatas
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another Malpolon
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Uh - besides crazy horses (we nearly got run over..) one of the greatest dangers on fieldtrips: bloody bears with horns
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if you're along the seaside all the time, there comes the day you even start to photograph that..
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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! :-)
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Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:42 pm
by 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 :oops: )

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 6:27 am
by Ray Hamilton
Nice post with some good shots. Looks like a productive stay.

Really enjoyed the Malpolon shots. Thanks.

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 6:36 am
by Peter Oefinger
Great!
Gerald Ochsenhofer wrote: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.

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 7:39 am
by Jürgen Gebhart
Peter Oefinger wrote: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!

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 7:54 am
by Rok Grzelj
Great finding the cow :D
...but im sooooooo jealous of telescopus,malpolon and situla

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:25 am
by Mario Schweiger
Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:( Is there only 1 melisellensis among these pictures? Still stays a bit difficult for me :oops: )


Seems to be NOT!
There´s only one ;)

Mario

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 11:07 am
by 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 :D ;)

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

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:43 pm
by Jeroen Speybroeck
Gerald Ochsenhofer wrote:Which one did you doubt?


None, just testing myself.

Re: Spring in Croatia

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 4:38 pm
by 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.