A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

Postby Ruggero M. » Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:29 am

Watching the beautiful pictures of the habitats of the giant salamander in Japan, I've thought about some "similar" creek places not far from my home town, which are really poorly known, and extremely difficult to reach.
I will show this 3D to my friends Achim and Rica, who were with me in some similar places (Rio Baracca, for instance), but not at the Manzu lake, the most difficult excursion I've probably made in my life, with many failed attempts, before finally reaching the wonderful small lake, with the help of my friends Edoardo and Alessio.
"Manzu", in the vernacular language of the Genova territory, literally means "beef", and the legend tells that a beef died many years ago in that isolated, suggestive, small, yet very deep lake.

The snakes I've found in that pristine habitat are: H.viridiflavus, C.austriaca, N.natrix, N.maura, V.aspis, but almost certainly also the elusive Z.longissimus lives there.

Most of my pictures here are simply habitat pictures, because I could not grab the small aspisviper I saw (very fast moving among stones!), and I did not photograph the baby viridiflavus I captured: interested people, who want to know the exact position of this place, can contact me with P.M. :ugeek:
The starting point of the excursion is about one hour from Genova, in the direction of Milano, near the village of Masone.

The difficulties of the excursion (mostly without any beaten path) are well shown in the following few shots.

difficult1.jpg

difficult2.jpg

landshaft1.jpg

landshaft2.jpg

maura habitat.jpg
Shallow pools are very common

maura.jpg
...and inhabited by fish predators!
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Re: A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

Postby Ruggero M. » Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:37 am

Edoardo failed to grab that maura, but I was successfull with this baby N.natrix

baby natrix.jpg
Simulating death after capture

casio habitat.jpg
Not far from the "Coronella austriaca place"

casio.jpg
And the snake (Casio is always my best sponsor!)

ramarro.jpg
Very common everywhere in those places
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Re: A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

Postby Ruggero M. » Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:42 am

The biggest "lake" one can find during the excursion: rather easily reached

big lake.jpg
The so called "Pignattin" lake

big lake2.jpg
Same

big lake3.jpg


Another wonderful small lake along the trail: the lake "Sutta u Manzu" aka "Blue Lagoon" by our group
laguna blu.jpg
Sutta u Manzu



The last difficult part, just below the Manzu lake
fall.jpg

fall2.jpg
My friend Alessio is watching towards me
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Re: A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

Postby Ruggero M. » Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:51 am

And finally the almost inaccessible Manzu lake

Manzu.jpg

Manzu2.jpg

Manzu3.jpg
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Re: A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

Postby Pablo Deschepper » Sat Dec 20, 2014 3:36 pm

What a beautiful place!
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Re: A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

Postby Ruggero M. » Sat Dec 20, 2014 5:54 pm

Pablo Deschepper wrote:What a beautiful place!



Thanks, Pablo!

It was not easy, but I've found the lake again with Google Earth. :P
This is the satellite image of the Manzu lake
Google Earth.jpg
Google Earth.jpg (42.57 KiB) Viewed 6362 times
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Re: A good reptile habitat near Genova: the "Manzu" lake

Postby Ruggero M. » Sun Dec 21, 2014 9:30 am

Another small and wonderful lake, not very far from the Manzu, in the direction of Savona. Less difficult footpath, and same snake species observed, excluded the N.maura and the C.austriaca: a huge N.natrix, H.viridiflavus, and a small V.aspis.
The name of the lake is "Dra Caicia", meaning "The waterfall lake".

gola.jpg
View from the footpath: a small water hole (not the lake!)

roccia2.jpg
Just before reaching the lake

roccia.jpg
Same stone

mangrovia.jpg
"Mangroves" at the shore of the lake

cascata.jpg
The lake with its beautiful waterfall

earth2.jpg
Satellite view (you can clearly identify the lake, the "mangrove" tree, and the big stone in the water to the north of the lake)



Natrix maura is one of the commonest snakes in west Liguria, so I think it was only unluck having not found specimens of this species in this creek.

nmaura.jpg
N.maura from the nearby ligurian Val Gargassa
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