we travelled again to Albania with mammal specialists from the Hungarian Natural History Museum, because for the first time at the last two trips (XI, and XII Al-Ex) we have found a new mammal species for the albanian fauna, the lesser mole rat.
We started our mission in Montenegro, in the Prokletije Mountains, to collect material from locally distributed Nannospalax species for comparison the albanian specimens. They tried to cacth mole rats alive, and I tried to find some representatives of the herpetofauna.
Habitat of Zootoca vivipara, and probably Vipera berus bosniensis and Vipera ursinii macrops.
Waiting for the mole rat. They can wait hours like this...
Nannospalax montanoserbicus from the type locality.
Next day we travelled to the albanian side of Prokletije, after 16 hours of driving we arrived there. Here we have been 18 km from the montenegrian place...
Zootoca habitat abowe 2000 meters.
First documented record from Albania. (There is another in literature from Korab Mt. but after two searching occasions we only found there Lacerta agilis bosnica, and some Vipera ursinii macrops. If anyone knows what is the situation of the species on the Macedonian side it would be great.)
Gábor Csorba, co-director of HNHM. Around 1800 meters, in the Nannospalax habitat, which is great for other species also:
From Prokletije there is a new record from climbers of Salamandra atra. Sadly I only managed to find Salamanadra salamandra, after a long rainy night search.
After catching the mole rat in this locality we travelled to the central part of Albania.
Some Vipera ursinii graeca habitats from 2400 meter.
Young Greek meadow viper, from the northermost population (discovered two trips before).
Huge Ammo, just 30 meter from the meadow viper (1850 meter abowe sea level).
This two Greek meadow viper habitats are the only ones with Juniper bushes in Albania.
A little bit lower, around 1500 meter the guys started again searching the holes of mole rats.
Meanwhile I cooked some food...
All night we waited for some mole rat activity...
After one and a half day:
Next day we travelled to Greece, close to the albanian border, collect material from the type locality of Nannospalax epiroticus.
We spent here four days with some very tricky mole rat. We gone home, without achievement.
By the way, with Ottó we found two Testudo marginata.
