Herper's paradise - Madagascar

[Mario Schweiger]

great collection of pictures (although no vipers )
Mario

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Fantastic - this surely will be inspirational for when I get to go there

[Bastien Comment]

Thanks for all the feedbacks, here's a new round.

Road trip from Andasibe to Ankarafantsika (3rd of February 2012)

Landscape.

Betsiboka river.

Quite angry...

Nice camouflage!

Over the rainbow.

Madagascarophis colubrinus (probably occidentalis).

Very common in this area, we've found at last one every night.

Pseudoxyrhopus quinquelineatus.

Despite its small size, it's quite agressive...

Ankarafanstika 3rd of February - 7th of February 2012

Some habitats and landscapes.

Good luck when you're looking for Langaha madagascariensis in this mess...

Baobabs.

One of Madagascar's traps.

Night herping:

Directly when we arrived at the bungalow, a new target, another Uroplatus!

Nice decoration inside the room!

The biggest spider we've seen, you have to imagine that it was standing in a palm tree about 3 meters over the floor and it still looked huge!

Pseudoxyrhopus quinquelineatus.

Madagascarophis colubrinus

Sleeping Mimophis mahafalensis (there will be better pictures of this specie by day, it was also very common).

Day herping:

Domicodryas quadrilineatus.

Mimophis mahafalensis.

[Bastien Comment]

Leioheterodon madagascariensis, also a very common specie in this area.

Back home.

Leioheterodon madagascariensis.

Baby Mimophis mahafalensis.

Bibilava lateralis.

In-situ Leioheterodon madagascariensis.

Portrait.

In-situ Sanzinia madagascariensis high in a tree.

Mimophis mahafalensis.

Cobra style Leioheterodon madascariensis.

All specimen were pretty big, around 1.50 meters if not a bit more.

In-situ Sanzinia madagascariensis.

The biggest reptile of the trip and by far. But we didn't go too close...

The team, Yannick on the right, me on the left and Rap, our guide in Ankarafantsika.

The day we've left, we've had the chance to see a Leioheterodon modestus crossing the road in front of our car.

Storm is coming on the way to the next destination, Ranomafana.

And last but not least for Ankarafantsika, I want to give a special tribute to one of our absolute top target, the Acrantophis madagascariensis (a living one because we had seen a freshly killed one on the road when we've arrived). We've tried hard to find one for the first two days, we've even been in the rice fields as you can see below (boots were then obviously of no help) and at a spot were the locals told us they sometimes see one, I've stuffed my arm in a kind of hole in which I couldn't see anything just to see if I could feel some scales...

Then, we've decided to use a well known technique in this kind of countries: the reward. We've passed a message in the surrounding villages that if they helped us to find a living boa, we would give them a little something. The day after, luck smiled at us.

Acrantophis madagascariensis.

Portrait.

Even if they're harmless, they unfortunately scare the malagasy people who often kill them.

Yannick and Mamy, our taxi guide who was also afraid of snakes slowly learned to know them and not to fear them anymore!

Yeaaaaaa!

Obviously, we couldn't leave the snake in the village, so we went back deeper in the jungle.

And the second Acrantophis madagascariensis, also found in a village.

[GertJan Verspui]

Please stop, it is too much

Basterd Trees are the best!!

[Bobby Bok]

Great! Brookesia and geckolepis are my favourites of this bunch

[Bart Smit]

what an awesome trip report, well done guys !

[Peter Oefinger]

Extremely impressive. Thanks for sharing - I think I would maybe be somekind of overstrained with all these species...

[Pierre-Yves Vaucher]

de Bleu de Bleu !!!!! ça alors, impressionnant de variété, bravo et merci.... tu es resté combien de temps ? ah oui 10 jours... et en seulement 10 jiours tu as vu tout ça ????

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

de Bleu de Bleu !!!!! ça alors, impressionnant de variété, bravo et merci.... tu es resté combien de temps ? ah oui 10 jours... et en seulement 10 jiours tu as vu tout ça ????

Graag reageren in het Engels, zodat iedereen kan volgen, PY !