Northern Spain Quiz

[Peter Oefinger]

Hi,
I just returned from a trip to Northern Spain and photographed some species I'm not familiar with. Hence, a simple quiz with for questions, which may be quite easy for you:

1. (Sausage question) Which Vipera is this?

2. Which Salamandra subspecies occurs in the mountains west of Leon?

3. I visited a spot for Salamndra alfredschmidti. What I expected was this:

But most of the animals at this place looked like that:

4. In the A Coruna area occur Podarcis hispanicus type 1 and Podarcis bocagei. To which species do the following specimen belong?

Thanks for your help

Peter

[Daniel Bohle]

1. vipera seoanei - uniform
2. no snake -sorry
3. "
4. "

[Paul Lambourne]

Peter,

I will have a punt at your quiz....

I would say the viper is seoanei.. but would like a closer look at the head..

The salamandra I think is Almanzoris...

The alfredschmidti colour variant that is mostly dull yellow I have seen before and used to be called Tendi colour form... but is still alfredschmidti.

As for the lizard... I havnt got a scooby... they all look the same to me, just viper food

Standing by to be shot down in flames

Cheers Paul

[Mario Schweiger]

I would say, the Salamandra west of Leon is ssp. bejarae.
Almanzoris only occurs around Laguna Grande de Gredos and Cincos Lagunas, Sierra de Gredos.
The Tendi morph of Salamandra is ssp. alfredschmidti
GUNTHER KÖHLER & SEBASTIAN STEINFARTZ: A new subspecies of the fire salamander, Salamandra salamandra (LINNAEUS, 1758) from the Tendi valley, Asturias, Spain.
=> PDF-1808.
Lizard: Who cares on snake-food?

Mario

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

2. is gallaica, I think.

4. is typical hispanicus from that part of Iberia

alfredschmidti is quite variable
http://www.sabine-deschandol.com/pages- ... index.html

seoanei is cool!

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Sala ... uide.shtml

[Mario Schweiger]

According to KLEWEN, 1988 the eastern border of gallaica is approx a line from Ferrol (La Coruna) to the NE corner of Portugals border and south through Portugal to Picota/Serra de Monchique (Sal. s. crespoi)

Mario

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Checked the localities here => http://ib.berkeley.edu/labs/wake/2003_E ... mandra.pdf
Seems to depend on whether you were SW or SE of Leon (Padernelo is gallaica, Palacios del Sil and Lillo del Bierzo bejarae). If you were in or near the galani area, gallaica seems to be it, while further north bejarae takes over. In any case, close to the transition zone. But maybe somebody can tell from morphology or something, rather than place of origin.

[Peter Oefinger]

Thanks for the replies! Question 2 seems to be tricky:
The location is NE of Puebla de Sanabria.
According to Mario's info (Klewen) it is not gallaica. According to the caudata.org article it is gallaica.
According to the paper Jeroen mentionend (Garcia-Paris et al) it is bejarae.

???

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

I would go with the 2003 paper, so Mario's right. Maybe better to go for "gallaica/bejarae".