Ruggero Morimando wrote:And...we met a german tourist who is certain to have seen and photographed a longissima in the utmost southern part of Cres while camping... we will receive the pictures of this snake in a few weeks!
We received the pictures of the snake photographed beneath an old camper (at least, is seems to be something like this) and the snake is undoubtedly a Zamenis longissimus with typical light brown colour.
I don't know if I can publish or post the two pictures, because I've no direct permission to do so, even if the author is a colleague of mine, an austrian dermatologist from Graz.
So. The point.
We have in Cres, as far as I know, two distinct Z.longissimus populations: one in the north, where the snake is rather common, and one in the deepest south of the island, in Punta Kriza, in a "total" different habitat and even different climate.
Actually, for Punta Kriza Z.longissimus in not "totally new", because, if you search on the web, you'll find a picture of an Aesculapian snake with this locality: but now we have two specimens and we are so almost practically sure that there lives (or has lived?) a population of this species.
And this fact gives also a different light over the tale of a german tourist who told me that, when he was a child (so 35-40 years ago I would say), he saw Zamenis longissimus specimens also in the northern part of Losinj island, where the species is nowadays unknown.
But: why these two separate populations? One in the north, the other in the south, without any specimens in the biggest central body of Cres island?
In fact, so far as I can remember, no one has ever found Z.longissimus in other parts of Cres... only in the north: and/but now we know that this species lives also in the utmost southern part of the island...