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Hi
I found green toads at night roaming and snake-eyed lizard under stone , it is raining now. What other animals can i find in avsallar in rainy weather? Unfortunately I have not heard tree frogs calling. How hard is it to find tortoises and soft-shell turtles in rainy weather?

Hi Michal,

I visited Avsallar and its direct surroundings many times. There are a couple of great herp spots, including a small nature reserve behind Avsallar / Türkler.

Wouter

Thanks for your reply Wouter. I cannot hear any Hyla calling, only B. variabilis. Can you please give me an info about place of the population of Hylas via pm? Unfortunately I cannot find any tortoise but I have few more days here till coming back to Poland so we will see. A. anatolica does not occur in Avsallar according to lacerta.de http://www.lacerta.de/AS/Taxon.php?Genus=18&Species=53

Why have you chosen such a bad (=cold) season to visit Turkey?

Today I found huge adult Bufo. Amphibiaweb says it is B. verrucosisimus- lifer

According to allozyme data, Bufo bufo from the Anatolian part of Turkey is closer to B. verrucosisimus, in comparison to B. bufo or B. spinosus (from Tunisia, for example). Therefore, the Anatolian part of Turkey, as well as the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon, are considered to be inhabited by B. verrucosissimus and not B. bufo, despite the record provided by Hraoui-Blouqet et al. (2001) for Lebanon (Litvinchuk, pers. comm. 2008).

Ruggero Morimando wrote:Why have you chosen such a bad (=cold) season to visit Turkey?

Semenders (it means salamanders in Turkish)

Michal Szkudlarek wrote:Today I found huge adult Bufo. Amphibiaweb says it is B. verrucosisimus- lifer

According to allozyme data, Bufo bufo from the Anatolian part of Turkey is closer to B. verrucosisimus, in comparison to B. bufo or B. spinosus (from Tunisia, for example). Therefore, the Anatolian part of Turkey, as well as the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon, are considered to be inhabited by B. verrucosissimus and not B. bufo, despite the record provided by Hraoui-Blouqet et al. (2001) for Lebanon (Litvinchuk, pers. comm. 2008).

Ruggero Morimando wrote:Why have you chosen such a bad (=cold) season to visit Turkey?

Semenders (it means salamanders in Turkish)

Have you seen the salamanders?
Your question about black snakes (in the China 3d): I think they could be D.jugularis.

Have you seen the salamanders?

Not yet. Today I was searching near and inside Dim Cave to no avail. I found only juvenile L. pamphylica under stone.

the 30th of December

I arrived to Turkey in afternoon. It was rainy and cloudy. I went to promising spot I found via google maps and it turned out that it has became a building site. I managed to hear mating calls of Bufotes variabilis and find snake-eyed lizard under a stone. I played recording of mating call of Hyla orientalis in attempt to make tree frogs vocalize but apparently the water body was not OK for this species.




breeding site of Bufotes variabilis


After sunset I checked that place once again and found many Bufotes variabilis. One juvenile, many adults (some of them vocalizing) and one pair in amplexus on land. One specimen had midline makind it look like Epidalea calamita. I found such dorsal line in European Green Toad in Poland.


juvenile
















a pair in amplexus

the 31st of December

It was rainy as well. I decided to get north by dolmuses to find salamanders. I went by foot a bit and then I noticed Pelophylax bedriagae in a ditch next to road.


I went north but no dolmus appeared so I ditched idea of going further as salamander spot was too far away for me to reach it by foot. I could have hitchhike but allegedly it is not safe. I reached wild area and flipped some stones counting on salamanders being present southern (I don't know boundaries of the population) but I found once again only snake-eyed lizard - Ophisops elegans basoglui.

the 1st of January

It got sunny. I went for a walk and found introduced Phoenicolacerta laevis.

















their habitat




males














a pair


Then I found mating Anatololacerta pelasgiana ibrahimi.


https://youtu.be/-iJNWLo9B40



their habitat


In sunny weather lizards were common- even on beach.


In afternoon I went to side by bus and found starred agama- Stellagama stellio daani but it escaped so I have only photo of its habitat.