A few photos from Galicia - June 2017

[Ilian Velikov]

Well, I think the weather there shouldn't be much different, so good luck!

[Bobby Bok]

I was surprised how easy I found it, although I only found one...Maybe it's a matter of being at the right place, which I'm sure you won't have a problem with. Where are you going? At least in Galicia the weather was right for it - frequent showers with some intermittent sunshine, temperature 17-20 C. Vegetation was lush and green, unusual for this time of year I think, but good for amphibians. I heard many frogs calling at night but frustratingly the waters where the calls were coming from were extremely overgrown and inaccessible.

Looks like a great holiday Ilian! As for Chioglossa, they are usually harder to find in springtime than in summer. Even in summer it is rainy in Northern Spain and as a consequence it is lush trhoughout the year. But in summer the Chioglossa congregate in and near the streams making it easier to find them.

[Ilian Velikov]

Thanks Bobby! This info was very useful, actually I might have read it in a book somewhere but it slipped my mind

[Bobby Bok]

Probably a crappy book

[Peter Oefinger]

Nice situ pictures, Iberolacerta of course is the best . I also like the Chalcides shots - I never managed to photopgraph these shy critters in situ...

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

I never managed to photopgraph these shy critters in situ...

You're not alone!

[Ilian Velikov]

Nice situ pictures, Iberolacerta of course is the best

Thanks Peter! I already asked but no answer so far - do you know if they are often found living on human dwellings (similar to some gecko species)?

I also like the Chalcides shots - I never managed to photopgraph these shy critters in situ...

You're not alone!

On the other hand, I never managed to catch any of them
I tried to photograph them in the afternoon on the first day which was rather hot but I could barely see what species of lizard it was. I only heard a rustle in the grass and occasionally saw a flash of a tail. Only putting the location, habitat and the serpentine movement together made me realize they were Chalcides. The next day I got up really early (before the break of dawn) went to the place and waited for the first sun rays, that's how I managed to take the photos. It was the first time after a cold-ish night they were getting out of hiding to warm up. I managed to get close enough but they were still very skittish and fast!

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Wooow, that has to be the way to nail that in situ shot, indeed... Well done!

I wouldn't call Iberolacerta species typical 'house-climbers', but if it's the right type of rock offering enough shelter, I guess they wouldn't be able to tell the difference with other rocky outcrops. Building walls may require them to move around more in order to be able to bask throughout the day than a perfectly exposed rock pile, but to my mind they seem more adventurous than Podarcis species anyway.

From personal experience, I've seen martinezricai, bonnali, cyreni, galani and aranica on man-made walls and/or houses. But I never got the impression that they were favouring this type of substrate; it rather just happened to be in their habitat and deemed suitable.

[Ilian Velikov]

Wooow, that has to be the way to nail that in situ shot, indeed... Well done!

Thanks! The only downside of in-situ Chalcides was that (at least in this grassy habitat) they never basked fully exposed. Their heads and tails were almost invariably hidden, with just the "middle" part of the body sticking out. It's a fairly good way to maximize their chances of survival in case of an attack because that way you couldn't tell which end is the head and which end is the tail. That was also the time when I first saw the seoanei but vipers I guess are generally more predictable.

From personal experience, I've seen martinezricai, bonnali, cyreni, galani and aranica on man-made walls and/or houses. But I never got the impression that they were favouring this type of substrate; it rather just happened to be in their habitat and deemed suitable.

I think this was the case with those monticola as well. It was an old traditional stone house with a sort of rustic/natural garden overgrown with a lot of plants that happened to be in their habitat. The weird thing was that just a few meters down the road there were two ruins of the same style stone houses overgrown with vines and bushes and a lot more hiding places between the displaced and falling stones. It looked like the perfect lizard (and snake) habitat but I didn't see any lizards (or anything else) there. Maybe the human activity in the occupied house (food and animal (horses,dogs) waste, lights, moisture from watering the garden, flowers, etc.) attracted more invertebrate food for them. The cool thing was that they were so accustomed to humans that I could almost touch this male from the photos and he wasn't bothered at all

[Ruggero M.]

It happened to me to meet Chalcides sp. basking fully exposed on asphalted roads. Is it really a so rare situation?
Clearly they do something "wrong" acting like this (I mean for their surviving chanches), but I can remember at least 2-3 occasions when I saw this behaviour.

Chalcides sp. from italian northern Apennines, basking on asphalt