One year ago we made a trip to the southwestern part of Turkey, mainly to find as many as possible taxa within the Lyciasalamandra genus. Because of the minimal amount of rain, flipping stones was our main approach, resulting in mutilated hands at the end of the trip
Fortunately the effort payed off, and we ended up with 16 taxa of Lyciasalamandra, even more than we hoped for beforehand. New taxonomic insights will probably change this number a bit in the future, but who cares if you can get to see such a variety of beautiful colors and patterns.
We didn't forget other Urodeles as well, and found Triturus ivanbureschi and Lissotriton schmidtleri at their southernmost border. Eighteen species of reptiles were seen, including some endemics like Ophiomorus kardesi and Anatololacerta budaki.
For the trip report:
https://pantala.jouwweb.nl/trip-reports/asia/turkey-march-2020
