Pyrenees & Picos de Europa

Portugal, Spain, Andorra

Pyrenees & Picos de Europa

Postby Lennart Schmid » Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:40 pm

So after a quiet summer of herping in croatia last year, I decided to visit the pyrenees this time. My main goal were (of course) the vipers and especially V. aspis zinnikeri. After a stop near Lourdes for some landscapes we went to a remot spot in the spanish side of the pyrenees for the aspis. After seeing many vultures on our way to the location my hopes were quite high although it was a bit cold and windy. After about 30 minutes of searching I got lucky and found my first V. aspis aspis.

ImageVipera aspis by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr



The next days we concentrated on finding the aspis zinnikeri but we had no luck at all, although the weather was perfect. We did however find many Coronella, a bunch of Lacerta bilineata and Calotriton asper.

ImageBilineata 1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageDSC_5452 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr



On our last day I finally found another V. aspis, a huge one. However I am not so sure if it is an aspis aspis or aspis zinnikeri. Do any of you know which subspecies it could be?

ImageAspis 2.1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageVipera asis by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr



On the evening of the same day we tried a new location and finally after days of searching we found our first aspis zinnikeri! :) .

ImageZinnikeri 1.2 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageVipera aspis zinnikeri by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr



A friend of mine, who already showed me the place for the aspis told me about an amazing place for Vipera seoanei in the french pyrenees. At first I wouldn´t believe him because he talked about dozens of vipers on only a few square feet.
So of course I went there and it was amazing. I had never seen such a healthy eco system before. There were many frogs, lizards, toads, newts and mice and of course many, many vipers. We stopped counting at 15 the first day but we saw quite a few more. The beautiful part about the seoanei´s was their different colorations, so here are my favorite ones:

A very dark female

ImageSeoanei 1.1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageVipera seoanei by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr




A very light female

ImageSeoanei 4.1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageVipera seoanei by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr




An almost striped female

ImageSeoanei 5.1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr




A patternless female

ImageSeoanei 6.1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageSeoanei 6.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr




A beautiful male (the only male we found)

ImageSeoanei 2.1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageVipera seoanei by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr




And last but not least my favorite one: a black female with some pattern shining through

ImageSeoanei 3.1.1 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

ImageViperas seoanei by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr




After this amazing place we decided to end the herping part of our trip and went to spains atlantic coast. But after I heard of a good place for Chioglossa lusitanica I had to check it out of course :D .

ImageDSC_6947 by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr





One of the best parts of the trip were the landscapes of the pyrenees. These mountains are unbelievably beautiful and so I thought I might share some of my favorite places with you:

ImagePyrenees waterfall by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

ImagePyrenees creek by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

ImageFoggy waterfall by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

ImageFoggy trail by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

ImagePicos de Europa Waterfall by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

I hope you guys enjoyed my little tripreport! :)
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Lennart Schmid
 
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Re: Pyrenees & Picos de Europa

Postby Guillaume Gomard » Fri Aug 25, 2017 3:20 pm

The landscapes are as nice as these seoanei ;) I also have a preference for this very dark individual, well done. The first aspis looks really pissed off, a too long photo session maybe? :lol:
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Re: Pyrenees & Picos de Europa

Postby Lennart Schmid » Fri Aug 25, 2017 5:53 pm

Guillaume Gomard wrote:The landscapes are as nice as these seoanei ;) I also have a preference for this very dark individual, well done. The first aspis looks really pissed off, a too long photo session maybe? :lol:


Thanks :)
Haha, yes it was very pissed, but this shot as actually about 1min after I found it, I think it might have been so angry because it was not heated up very well and more vulnerable, I didn´t bother it very long :D .
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Re: Pyrenees & Picos de Europa

Postby David Guerra » Sat Aug 26, 2017 8:18 am

Nice vipers and pics! Congrats!
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Re: Pyrenees & Picos de Europa

Postby Niklas Ban » Sat Aug 26, 2017 4:40 pm

Many great shots, fiindings, must be a good trip! For my view a few to many teeth here. ;)
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