This year´s Easter Bobby and I spent on Malta. We stayed three days on the island, which we used to explore both touristy as well as less touristically developed places and to find as many of the occurring amphibian and reptile species as possible. While we found Painted Frogs, Mediterranean Chameleons, Moorish and Turkish Gecko, Maltese Wall Lizards, innumerous Ocellated Skinks and a single Western Whip Snake, we sadly did not succeed in finding our main target, Algerian Whip Snake. This left us puzzled, in particular as we searched intensively on four occasions on three days, with two to three persons, under different (all rather favorable) weather conditions and at different times of day. Until now, I do not have a good explanation for the absence of the snake - season and weather were ok, the habitat still looks good and we did find a lot of other reptiles as well as another snake species there. So maybe it was just bad luck? I am already curious when (or if?) a new record of the species will pop up.
As puzzling as it was however, it did not keep us from enjoying the island and its herpetofauna to its fullest! There were still enough Easter Eggs to find on Malta to make us both very happy... Here are some of my highlights of the trip; the full selection of photos can as always be found on my picasaweb: picasaweb.google.com\tiemann.laura
Thanks for looking and enjoy!
- Chalcides ocellatus
- Podarcis filfolensis
- Hierophis virdiflavus carbonarius
- English cemetery; habitat of Podarcis filfolensis, Tarentola mauritanica and Chalcides ocellatus
- Spectacular view on Ghajn Tuffieha Bay
- Swimming on your own risk...
- In a muddy puddle not far from the lookout we found the first Painted Frogs (Discoglossus pictus) of the trip
- What would a trip to Malta (or a trip with Bobby the chameleon-addict) be without chameleons? This one was a nice grey individual.
- Chamaeleo chamaeleon
- Chamaeleo chamaeleon
- Another muddy puddle, another Discoglossus pictus - this one had a nice contrasty pattern.
- same
- Valletta at dusk
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