Not found yet

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Not found yet

Postby Kevin Byrnes » Tue May 19, 2015 9:30 pm

Prompted by a conversation in the Krk thread, I would like to ask what species others have missing from their "tick list", I mean those species that everyone else seems to almost trip over everytime they go herping. Despite seeing 90 species, I have never found a Bombina or an adult Fire salamander, I spent a week in both Croatia and Monte negro but have never found a V ammodytes.
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Bobby Bok » Wed May 20, 2015 8:06 am

After the conversation on the other topic I was also thinking of starting this kind of thread, nice that you beat me to it Kevin ;)

Not really a species I didn't see yet but I have never seen a living adult of that species. For me my definitive "nemesis" species is Elaphe quatuorlineata. I have been on so many trips to countries where this species occurs (Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, Macedonia) and all I ever found were DORs and a single subadult caught by myself at Lake Volvi in Greece.

With its congener Elaphe sauromates I have similar problems... In 2010 in Greece only a juvenile and a single adult freshly killed by the car in front of us. In 2013 in Greece also only a juvenile. In 2014 in Bulgaria another freshly killed adult, big and beautiful.
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Kristian Munkholm » Wed May 20, 2015 8:52 am

Fun topic.

My list of embarrassing "not found yets" is frighteningly long but that is mostly just down to not actively having searched for them at appropriate times and places so it doesn't really count.

The fact that I haven't really done any serious herping in central and western Europe south of the border by itself seems an embarassment to me. I hope to find the time for a little herping and have the luck to knock off a couple of those missing common species on my upcoming family summer vacation to western Liguria (aesculapian snake, adult fire salamander (yep, me too)).

My main European miss is probably seeing a common treefrog from an original population. I have only seen them in reintroduced populations. Considering it is a native species, easy to find in a small country with a limited herpetofauna, that just seems wrong.

Finally, before last year's trip to Texas I was told copperheads were a trash snake I would certainly stumble upon almost without even trying. Chances of finding one flipping logs in upland wooded habitat (did plenty of that) should be good. Chances should be even better road cruising. In particular I was told of one particular road where I "couldn't miss" being led to believe 15 coppers in a night was more or less the norm. I went to that road twice, first time I found two freshly hit coppers, one still twitching, second time I met another group of herpers that had just seen a large specimen crossing the road 5 minutes earlier. All the locals were subsequently absolutely incredulous that I could have missed them.
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Paul Lambourne » Wed May 20, 2015 9:09 am

OK guys.. its taken a lot of courage... but I'm gonna share now..please don't judge me..

My name is Paul and I have never seen sauromantes.. despite looking..a lot...I was with Bobby when we found the fresh killed stunning adult..

As far as uber common species in Europe ..I have never seen sharp rib newt ..I know...I will immediately remove myself from the forum and punish myself.

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Re: Not found yet

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Wed May 20, 2015 9:59 am

This is fun!

There's of course always some stuff to long for (in my case pictures of adult martinezricai and decent ones of Psammodromus edwarsianus and Timon nevadensis) and to keep you going. And when you keep going, you find other unexpected cool stuff along the way. Love it.

Bobby, did you forget about Hemorrhois algirus? :twisted:

Kevin, Kristian, if the "find-it-yourself" virus is mild in you, feel free to drop by for Salamandra madness some day.

More off-topic-ish =>
It's funny how in the USA herpers always judge this sort of thing in terms of personal finds, while we (or maybe not all of us?) tend to 'allow' group finds on our personal lists. That's another (silly but fun) point of debate by itself, no? I checked and if I only count "find-it-yourself", I would still have to go and find 1 newt species, 3 species of frogs, a sea turtle, 1 or 2 lizard species and a smashing 10 species of snakes to complete the Euro list. Luckily, I allow myself a lazier way of twitching :oops: - as you can see, my snake list would be a lot shorter if it wasn't for the help of many, many others.
I can understand personal effort has its own reward, but I've never really got "the US way". Especially not, if it comes down to going to a very small spot of which you know beforehand there's guaranteed success (e.g. a Speleomantes cave someone told you about, an islet with Podarcis raffonei or levendis, ...) or road cruising (where's the effort in driving other than spending money, polluting and staying awake?).
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Kristian Munkholm » Wed May 20, 2015 10:16 am

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Kevin, Kristian, if the "find-it-yourself" virus is mild in you, feel free to drop by for Salamandra madness some day.

More off-topic-ish =>
It's funny how in the USA herpers always judge this sort of thing in terms of personal finds, while we (or maybe not all of us?) tend to 'allow' group finds on our personal lists. That's another (silly but fun) point of debate by itself, no? I checked and if I only count "find-it-yourself", I would still have to go and find 1 newt species, 3 species of frogs, a sea turtle, 1 or 2 lizard species and a smashing 10 species of snakes to complete the Euro list. Luckily, I allow myself a lazier way of twitching :oops: - as you can see, my snake list would be a lot shorter if it wasn't for the help of many, many others.
I can understand personal effort has its own reward, but I've never really got "the US way". Especially not, if it comes down to going to a very small spot of which you know beforehand there's guaranteed success (e.g. a Speleomantes cave someone told you about, an islet with Podarcis raffonei or levendis, ...) or road cruising (where's the effort in driving other than spending money, polluting and staying awake?).


I don't maintain a list per se, simply because whatever set of criteria I apply (to issues such as "find-it-yourself" but there are others as well) will always be more or less random. If I take the strictest criteria I could imagine and replace them with the most permissive I would probably boost my list by 50%.

Personally, I guess I have a moderate case of "find-it-myself" virus. I am not too proud to go to your Speleomantes cave but the find certainly feels more significant if I discover the cave myself.

...& yes, I'd love to drop by your local woods if I'm ever in the neighbourhood :)
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Wed May 20, 2015 10:47 am

Kristian Munkholm wrote:whatever set of criteria I apply (to issues such as "find-it-yourself" but there are others as well) will always be more or less random. If I take the strictest criteria I could imagine and replace them with the most permissive I would probably boost my list by 50%.

Very true.

Kristian Munkholm wrote:...& yes, I'd love to drop by your local woods if I'm ever in the neighbourhood :)

Bring rain!
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Martti Niskanen » Wed May 20, 2015 11:15 am

Simply Salamandra salamandra for me.
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Jürgen Gebhart » Wed May 20, 2015 3:03 pm

Very simple, not hard to think over it.

Vipera ammodytes ruffoi or how I call it, “Phantom”

Try to find this snake since more than ten years.
It looks like that it is not a big challenge for most of the Herpers and also Non-Herpers, but for me it is my personal nightmare.
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Re: Not found yet

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Wed May 20, 2015 3:39 pm

Jürgen Gebhart wrote:Vipera ammodytes ruffoi or how I call it, “Phantom”

Maybe it is a phantom, see below:

"In particular, the mtDNA sequences from all samples of the subspecies V. a. ruffoi in
the Adige valley (Italy) and V. a. gregorwallneri in the southernmost Austria (Bruno,
1968; Sochurek, 1974), which were described as colour morphs, as well as the samples
of the subspecies ammodytes from north-eastern Italy (Friuli), were identical. Whereas
the aims of this study were not to propose modifications to the present systematic of
V. ammodytes, both genetic and morphological studies (this study and Tomović , 2006)
confirm that these subspecies have to be considered as synonyms of V. a. ammodytes
(as also Heckes et al., 2005)."
Ursenbacher & al. (2008)

But you already know all that, I suppose.
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