Hello everyone
I recently returned from a family holiday to Turkey. We stayed in Side, near the town of Manavgat. This is roughly half way between the cities of Antalya and Alanya. Temperatures here were about 20-25*C for the whole week, which made seeing reptiles quite easy in the morning and later afternoon. In total 2 species of amphibians and 14 species of reptiles were seen (9 lizards, 2 snakes, 2 chelonia and 1 amphisbaenian). All four visits combined it's 3 amphibians and 17 reptiles, so a good place for herping by anyone's standards.
This is the 4th time I have been to this area in Turkey, and being limited to mainly walk-able distances from the accommodation, I have been able to explore most places in quite good detail. From what I understand, there could be 3 more lizard species (Chameleon, Anatolacerta danfordi and Anatolacerta oertzeni in the mountains above Manavgat) and 5 species of snakes (Typhlops, Eryx, Eirenis, N. tessellata and Telescopus) near the coast and Malpolon, M. xanthina (many miles west) and M. lebetina (many miles east) which should be found in the mountains in this region of Turkey.
Anyway, here are some photos I took last week. Some more can be seen on my personal website and on Flickr.
The Hatay Lizards are an introduction to the Side/Manavagt area, although they have spread further west up the coast to places like Colakli. They are natives of south eastern Turkey, not surprisingly the Hatay province.
The Pamphylian Green Lizards are only found in Antalya province. They can be seen in field edges around the Side Area.In the breeding season males develop a bright blue head, yellow belly and green backs. Females are generally more brown and green.
In this part of Turkey sitting down by water not for long can result in seeing some beautiful animals. People sit down by rivers in England for a week to photograph one of these!
Interesting caterpillars can be seen in the sand dunes to the west of Manavgat river:
And now some snakes!
Dahl's Whipsnakes are extremely fast. For those of you who have not seen them in the wild, you can be lucky to see them for a second before they disappear, they really are super-quick. I was in some Roman ruins and between two walls I saw this snake basking next to a bush. I thought about taking an in-situ photo, but decided against it as that had resulted in no photos of this species all the other times I had tried it. This is the first time I had caught this species, and the books are right, it doesn't hiss!
Finally, at quarter past five on the last day of the holiday I saw this beauty. I had been watching terrapins and frogs in a wider section of a stream fr about half an hour, with dragonflies and kingfishers flying around. I don't know why, but often when I find a snake I just have a feeling that I should look somewhere, and it usually works! This black whipsnake was lying out in the sun about 1m away from the greem lizard a few days earlier. There was also a hatay lizard about 50cms from the snakes head. It is the biggest snake I've seen in the wild, probably about 1.7m+.
Great way to end the holiday!