Striped Zamenis longissimus from northern Italy

[Ruggero M.]

Same locality as the first one: pictures taken by my friend Max Marconi a few minutes ago... Hope you like this (probably female?) striped gold yellow specimen!

[Mario Schweiger]

very nice specimen.
I have seen one nearly equal, but a bit darker, many many years ago at La Parrina (Orbetello, Tuscany)

[Ruggero M.]

Thanks Mario.

Here is a male vs male "relationship". One male is "normal" coloured, the other one is straw yellow and fainted striped.
They went on "duelling" even when I had the both in my hands for some pictures (it was impossible in other way because the were hidden inside deep gras and bushes).

Very healthy and beautiful specimens! The straw yellow one was wonderful.

Notice the darker male which pushes its chin on the back of the yellow male...

In the same area (province of Alessandria) I once found a DOR baby aesculapian which was very pale in colour, straw yellow in contrast to the more usual yellow-brownish colour...
In recent years I've no longer found aesculapian snakes there. Very sorry...

[Ruggero M.]

A striped male of the last year (2023), in situ

[Mario Schweiger]

faint striped animals rarely all over distribution area

[Ruggero M.]

faint striped animals rarely all over distribution area

Yes, this is true, but...

In some areas striped longissimus occur rather often (northern italian Appennines for examples), while in other areas not.
I've never seen a picture of a striped longissimus, for instance, taken during the snake celebrations of Cocullo and Pretoro in central Italy.

Besides this, I've found years ago, where I live, a so well striped yellow longissimus (yellow background color with four brown stripes), which almost looked like an american Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittatus!

[Ruggero M.]

Surely the "genetic" of the various color morphs of the aesculapian snakes in not uniformly distributed throughout the wide areal of this species.
For example, in Cres, the majority of aesculapian snakes I've seen were the melanistic ones.
I could say, every 20 aesculapian in Cres, 12 were melanistic, 6 typically uniformly brown, and 2 faint striped.
By me near Pavia (northern Italy) I've found in 50 years of observations only one melanistic specimen (I've pictures of this one), and the other specimens were approximately 50% uniform brown and 50% faintly striped, with rare observations of some exceptionally well striped individuals. This in a total of probably more than one hundred specimens observed!

In the pictures taken from the religious processions of central Italy (in Pretoro only aesculapians are captured, and no Elaphe quatuorlineata, whereas in Cocullo mainly Elaphe quatuorlineata with some longissimus as side dish ), as I said, I've never seen faintly striped individuals. Not to speak about well striped ones!

[Mario Schweiger]

on Cres I have seen maybe 6 to 10 longissimus in all the years, but no real melanistic one. but this with some kind of inverted coloration (near Beli)

Zamenis longissimus from Beli/Cres island

[Ruggero M.]

on Cres I have seen maybe 6 to 10 longissimus in all the years, but no real melanistic one. but this with some kind of inverted coloration (near Beli)

Zwischenablage_04-27-2024_01.jpg

Thanks!
I would have put a specimen like yours from Beli in the group of the "faintly striped" ones.
In Cres I've seen aesculapian only in the North of the island.
And one picture of a normal brown individual from the extreme South (Punta Kriza). This is strange... But the most interesting part is a tale of a man who went in Losinj on vacation from his youth, who told me that many years ago aesculapian lived also in the northern part of Losinj, where no one is living today!