Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

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Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby GertJan Verspui » Fri Dec 18, 2015 4:33 pm

Yes, winter is here and most of us have a hard time surviving until spring starts again.
So, let us do something!

What is your best found herp/herp-story until this date?? If you want you can share your top 3 with us!

No worries if you can not choose, you can put more then one herp/story at each place if you really want to. :D

Looking forward to your answers, unfortunately I have to pack my bags now, so my top 3 will be shown later :mrgreen:
Amphibian & Reptile Adventures http://www.gertjanverspui.com
Instagram: @gj.verspui_wildlife
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Daniel Bohle » Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:58 pm

bitis arietans 2004 south africa
vipera berus 2006 at my lokal spot - after years of looking at a wrong place
ursinii graeca 2010
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Laura Bok » Fri Dec 18, 2015 11:48 pm

Great idea GertJan, this is going to be a fun topic! Here is my top 3:
1. Finding the only adult Ensatina eschscholtzii platensis after we had already given up hope. I almost cried. Maybe I did...
IMG_1290.JPG


2. Stumbling into the midst of mass breeding Lyciasalamandra fazilae (n > 150 ) in Turkey after an already amazing day of herping.
IMG_4501.JPG


3. Finding the only Salamandrina perspicillata in Northern Italy after searching for three days and nights in vain. Euphoria!
IMG_1610.JPG
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Martti Niskanen » Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:24 am

Cool question.

Best found in a group: Bitis peringueyi
Self-found: Bitis schneideri and Vipera ammodytes giving birth.
Makes a three.
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Christoph Stenger » Sat Dec 19, 2015 9:27 am

Vipera u. ursinii this year after years of searching.
German Vipera a. aspis
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Jürgen Gebhart » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:45 am

Top 3 of what I found by myself
Mottled Rock Rattlesnake (Crotalus Lepidus Lepidus) Sanderson/Texas 1994 first Rattlesnake ever.
First Aspis South Tyrol 2006
First Cerastes Cerastes that I tracked alone in the Negev Israel 2010

Top 3 of what we found in a Team
Daboia palaestinae Israel 2011, Daboia palaestinae Israel 2012
Walterinesia aegyptia Israel 2012
Pseudocerastes persicus UAE 2015

Top 3 of best Observations
Combat Dance between two western Diamondback Rattlesnakes less than a meter away from me New Mexico 2002
Copulation between a young male western Diamondback and a long time dead female. Texas 2002
Vipera aspis francisciredi Copulation Tessin/Switzerland April 2014
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Niklas Ban » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:15 pm

I like Jürgens disposition..

Top 3 of what I found by myself:
I think the first snake I have ever found a Natrix natrix helvetica in the age of 6.
Telescopus fallax on Corfu, because the time of the season wasn't the best, T. fallax is never a safe catch and on Corfu it might be very rare.
More a place than one herp.. in Ticino a very small wall with more than 20 Hierophis carbonarius.

Top 3 we found in a Team:
My first Vipera berus for sure, with my good friend Marc.
The German Speleomantes cf. italicus (thanks Paul ;) ).
An asp viper in the mountains of Ticino in the summer of 2013, which was the first snake in a long, dry and hot trip through france and the swiss alps.

Top 3 observations:
Combat dance between two adders this year. :mrgreen:
Mating behaviour by two adders in 2013.
Again my first Natrix and the reaction of my parents to the stink of Natrix defense behaviour. :lol:
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Peter Oefinger » Sat Dec 19, 2015 6:44 pm

Honestly - this issue is more fun with pictures - so I follow Laura's example (btw.: cool salamanders!)

29 blanus.jpg

#3: Blanus strauchi - because it took me 3 attmepts to find that species

57.jpg

#2: Podarcis liolepis from Sierra de Cazorla - because that was the moment I understood the systematics of Spanish Podarcis

48guentherpetersi.jpg

#1: Lacerta viridis guentherpetersi in terra typica - because there had been no pictures of that subspecies in the wild available before

Have nice holidays!
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Andre Schmid » Sun Dec 20, 2015 8:40 am

Nice but difficult topic :D

I think #3 on my ranking is...

Image

..the famous Milos-Viper.

#2 is not a only animal but the great trip with a lot of awesome snakes...

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...back in 2011 with D. Bohle, M. Glass and F. Reimann. To much beauty snakes this trip to choose THE favorite. But for sure, the uniform seoaneis and the black Natrix astreoptophora together with the striped seoaneis were on the top place :D

#1 my number one is without questions the...

Image

....Sardinian Grass-Snake. Seven days of searching without any sighting or something else....and than, at the day we leave the island (I remember well) I said to my girlfriend: "ok, no cetti this time...but one last walk, I´m back in 10 minutes"....and what the f****king h**l...there is one :mrgreen:
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Re: Best found Herp Ever?? Your Top 3

Postby Robin Duborget » Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:08 am

=> 3 : Salamandra lanzai in the Viso mountain at 4 am. With totally no hope of finding it because of the weather, totally not favourable, we finally saw 6-7 of them coming out from rock crevices.
IMG_9537(forum).jpg


=> 2 : Salamandrina perspicillata, at the end of a very succesful herping day. After flipping a Speleomantes, trying to replace the stone, saw four of this wonderful Salamandrina fleeing behind a big rock.
IMG_1503(forum).jpg


=> 1 : Pelobates cultripes at "Le Muy", France. We gone 11 time to this place for finding the Pelobates and finally saw three of them in the last trip, only when a big flooding frighthened the Var departement, in France.
IMG_1223(forum).jpg


ps : With this top it's very easy to separate the frogs and salamanders lovers from the snakes ones ;)
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