Dennis got his nickname because he bought a ladies hat to protect his semi-balled head from the sun. Since Dennis is pretty much indifferent to everything even remotely vain he bought a ladies hat because it was the cheapest he could find. The word Skägg means beard in Swedish. Hence the very suitable nick name Denise Skägg.
Stefan got the nickname Stephanie because he also bought a ladies hat to protect him from the sun. Unfortunately I have no images of him in his nice hat because he only had it for a few hours. The hat got lost in a drunken state one night and was never seen again.
Those of you that have followed my previous posts are familiar with the life form that goes by the name Fåkkel. It is usually both pussling and amusing to be around Fåkkel due to his extremely odd behaviour. This trip was no exception but I also learned that Fåkkels behaviours can be infectious. Here are a collection of photos showing some of the behaviours I could observe during the two weeks we travelled together.
In the beginning of the trip we went to the willage Torla in search of some salamanders and the asp viper. One night at the hotel I could note this behaviour. As usual I have no idea of the purpose or what it means.
Fåkkel, who works as an environmental consultant has developed an interest in bats. This means that he at any given time (usually at night) becomes unresponsive to any stimuli except the sounds of his bat equipment. Here he is listening for bats in the hotel room close to the city of Tortosa.
Fåkkel sporting a hip hop dress style during nightly search for frogs and salamanders
Here is the evidence that Fåkkel may infect others with his behaviour. I have no idea what this is about. It may be some kind of social bonding behaviour. If there are any psychologists reading this forum I would appreciate your input.
This year the trip actually started in Sweden. Our herp society arranged a small symposium on the island of Öland and yours truly was invited to give a talk. The day after we went to Northern Öland to look for Smooth snakes (Coronella austriaca) and we found an adult and a very small juvenile. Here is the adult.
We also found some other crittes including a Grass snake (Natrix natrix).
A day later we got on the plane to Spain. We landed in Girona late at night. Collected our two rental cars and headed to the hostel where we would spend our first night. We got there, went out and had a terrible dinner, got back to the hostel and went to sleep. The day after we headed out towards the mountains. The first stop was a small village called Torla (province of Huesca) where we hoped to see asp vipers (Vipera aspis zinnikeri). As would be the case many times during this trip the weather in Torla was cloudy, cold and the rain came down at regular intervals. After we had a tasty meal we headed back towards our hotel. Most of the gang was quite moody because of the weather but Dennis (who had his fair amount of beer for dinner) didn’t care that it was raining. Salamander people usually find cold and wet weather to be very nice! Dennis stood in front of the hotel entrance and proclaimed rather loudly that he was going straight up to the room to get his headlamp and then head out for salamanders. The only problem was that he was standing in front of the wrong hotel! Later when we had found our way back to the right hotel (and rooms), Dennis went out. Fåkkel also planned to go out, dressed for the occasion and fell asleep on his bed.
I did not get any pictures of the herps that were found around Torla. The species found were Podarchis muralis, Anguis fragilis and Rana pyrenaica. However, I did get this image of a mantis.
We spent two nights in Torla and the weather was steadily the same making the likelihood to find snakes minimal. The weather forecasts didn’t imply any change in the weather either so therefore we packed up the cars and headed out towards the village of Zuia (Provice Álava) to spend time in the National Park Gorbeia. Our main goal for this region was to find the Iberian adder (Vipera seaonei), a bunch of salamanders and Rana iberica. We were reasonable successful.
Iberian frog (Rana iberica)
Agile frog (Rana dalmatina)
Perez’s frog (Pelophylax perezi)
Natterjack toad (Bufo calamita)
Marbled newt (Triturus marmoratus)
Western three-toed skink (Chalcides striatus)
Wall lizard (Podarchis muralis)
Western green lizard (Lacerta bilineata)
Iberian green lizard (Lacerta schreiberi)
Viperine snake (Natrix maura)
Grass snake (Natrix natrix)
Iberian viper (Vipera seaonei)
Habitat for Iberian vipers and Western green lizards
After our tour in the neighbouring areas of Zuia we drove south east to Tortosa for a final stay before we returned home. Needless to say we didn’t do much herping in the city but we did find a whole bunch of Moorish geckos inside and outside the hotel.
Moorish gecko (Tarentola mauritanica)
When we returned to Girona the day before our flight home we stopped at a small pond ~20km from Tortosa. There we found what we believe to be Parsley frogs (Pelodytes punctatus).
Please be advised that I have left out detailed locality information to avoid pouching.
Cheers!
Nice Vipera seoanei !
and awesome pics, particularly the black V. seoanei with the yellow bug on the head ! 
