the size spectrum of snakes you caught

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the size spectrum of snakes you caught

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Tue May 26, 2015 8:40 am

I have another question.

Bero described Telescopus as a small species in comparison to Malpolon, which reminded me of 2 (1 DOR) large Teles from Kythira.

(look at that massive head)
Image

This species has me puzzled - do they all (potentially) grow up to >1m? If so, why are these (very) hard to find? Or aren't they? My experience with Telescopus would be that if adults "have to" grow to more than 1 meter, nearly all I have seen must have been subadults. Juveniles are also hard to come by - I remember 1 (cute and tiny one) from the Peloponnese.

Image

In a broader context, how would you summarise the size spectrum of (any) snake species you have found often? A somewhat cliché demography would have us expecting that small ones are more abundant, yet that does not have to mean they are more frequently encountered, I suppose (think of - more bold adults). Do you agree = are a lot of species more readily encountered as adults than what you would expect from a pyramid-shaped demography? There's probably some research about it, but let's just hear your impressions (first).
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Re: the size spectrum of snakes you caught

Postby Mario Schweiger » Tue May 26, 2015 10:52 am

Oh, depends on someones eyes maybe ;)
Elaphe quatuorlineata: all sizes from hatchlings to adults with most more than 150 cm or so.
Hierophis "carbonarius": most of them full black and more than 100 cm.
Telescopus fallax: between 25 and 80 (maybe more) cm. As far as I remember, this was my largerst one (Pakostane, Dalmatia, june 2007.
fallax1.jpg

fallax2.jpg
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Re: the size spectrum of snakes you caught

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Tue May 26, 2015 3:56 pm

Do you agree = are a lot of species more readily encountered as adults than what you would expect from
a pyramid-shaped demography?

Regarding encountered (found), my answer is YES, and probably everyone's, for rather obvious reasons.
(Juveniles just have to hide more, in order to survive... There's an interesting paper regarding V. berus
- juveniles lead quite a different life than the adults, even their thermoregulation and the preferred body
temperatures are different, in order to achieve that...)
But you posed quite a few interesting questions here, so it's probably going to become a very long "thread"...

Juveniles are also hard to come by - I remember 1 (cute and tiny one) from the Peloponnese.

I've seen only one juvenile, and it was a present (!) from a guy working in a storehouse on the island of Krk,
where they found three of them under some "hardware". I'm personally quite proud that this outcome was
actually a consequence of my own "propaganda" in the local community - none of them were killed on spot
and one was caught and presented to me, in good health. So, our efforts with the "natives" sometimes have
positive effects after all, albeit too few.
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