Alonnissos, Northern Sporades

[Mark Barber]

15th to 23rd April 2012.

It wasn't really an all out herp trip, but we did try and fail to find as much as possible.. It was very hot!

I picked up some leaflets, which were in Greek, that mentioned various reptile species. I'm not sure if they were just talking about Alonnissos, or all the islands. They mentioned Skyros Wall Lizard, Erhard's wall lizard, Kotschy's gecko, snake-eyed skink, Caspian whipsnake, Four-lined Snake, Leopard Snake, nose-horned viper, Spur-thighed tortoise and Marginated tortoise. There were also images of common tree frog and some sort of marsh frog.

Please do let me know if you think any of the wall lizards are not Erhard's!

Alonnissos Habitat

Erhard's Wall Lizard?

Large centipede - species?

Erhard's Wall Lizard?

Green lizard

Alonnissos Habitat

Erhard's Wall Lizard? feeding

Tiny scorpion - species?

Erhard's Wall Lizard? close up

Kotschy's gecko

RTA snake - species?

RTA snake - species?

Glow worm larvae

Male and female glow worm

Glowing

542930_10150832706036285_662867757_n.jpg (5.62 KiB) Viewed 7005 times

Erinaceus concolor

Turkish Gecko

The only wetlands on the island, all the streams have been manipulated and contained.

No sign of any amphibians

Erhard's Wall Lizard?

Erhard's Wall Lizard?

I did catch a glimpse of a melanistic viper that I believe was a nose-horned viper. I also briefly saw a (snake-eyed?) skink under a stone.

[Peter Oefinger]

Thanks for posting, Mark.
Skyros wall lizard is on Skyros and Piperi, only. All your pictures show erhardii ssp. ruthveni. Interesting: I know only few pictures of this ssp. although it seems that this is a valid ssp. - in contrast to most other aegaean subspecies.
Regards
Peter

[Vlad Cioflec]

The DOR looks like a Malpolon insignitus to me.

[Ilian Velikov]

The DOR looks like a Malpolon insignitus to me.

Yes, I think its a Malpolon too!

I did catch a glimpse of a melanistic viper that I believe was a nose-horned viper.

It would've been great to see a photo of that. I think I've never seen a melanistic ammo.

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

The DOR looks like a Malpolon insignitus to me.

caspius, anyone?

[Ilias Strachinis]

me too, caspius

[Mario Schweiger]

would also prefer caspius

Mario

[Ilian Velikov]

Colouration doesn't look caspius to me but this might be because the photo was taken using a flash.

The dorsal colour looks 'colder' metalic bluish gray than in caspius. Belly yellow is again more the yellow of insignitus rather than caspius. Also it lacks the lighter band in the middle of each scale that caspius has, and there's not even a hint of orange on the head or sides.

What makes you think it's caspius?

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

What makes you think it's caspius?

Relative size of the dorsal scales (larger and often grooved in Malpolon). Also, and decisively imho, you can see the frontal scale on the head, which is not elongated as it should be in Malpolon.

[Ilian Velikov]

Hmm...I'm not entirely convinced. I agree about the size of the scales but the head is quite deformed, so I'm not sure how much you can see from the frontal.