Natrix maura - N. tessellata, Switzerland

[Stéphane Aubry]

Today, despite a rainy, windy sky and a temperature at around 10°C, I went to a traditional swiss place to try to watch both N. maura and tessellata.

I was lucky enough to find 2 juveniles of both N. maura and tessellate under the stones in an area of about 4 m2 !

All individuals show, I think, the typical criteria of identification.

First N. tessellata

2nd N. tessellata trying to simulate the death ;-)

First N. tessellata

more pics of these ind. http://www.pbase.com/stephaubry/natrix_tessellata_220412

First N. maura

2 nd N. maura

Two-headed N. maura :-P

more pics of these ind. http://www.pbase.com/stephaubry/natrix_maura_220412

And I repost a pic of a subadult N. maura I saw in La Crau, France on Friday (http://fieldherping.eu/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1094) because it shows a rare or atypical 3 postocular scales (more typical of N. tessellata instead the typical 2 of N. maura) and 2 preocular instead of 1.

N. maura with 3 postocular scales

more pics on http://www.pbase.com/stephaubry/natrix_maura_200412

[Steve Devis]

Great pictures !

Love those tessellata eyes

[Stéphane Aubry]

Great pictures !

Love those tessellata eyes

Thanks Steve !

Next time, I hope to have some Natrix bigger than these 4 juveniles...

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Remind us again - isn't tessellata introduced and displacing maura overthere, or was it the other way around?

[Stéphane Aubry]

Remind us again - isn't tessellata introduced and displacing maura overthere, or was it the other way around?

N. maura exists in this place at a natural state. N. tessellata was introduced in this area in 1926 or before (the species is present at a natural state only in Tessin). Bigger size and better fecondity of tessellata seems to be an advantage and maura suffers of this.

N. maura is the most endangered snake species of Switzerland.

You can find a interesting text (in french) on http://www.karch.ch/karch/f/rep/nm/nmfs2.html look particularly at "Protection"

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Excellent, thanks!

[Steve Devis]

Wanna see more pics of the beauty Dice snake

[Stéphane Aubry]

Wanna see more pics of the beauty Dice snake

Sorry, very elusive, disappeared quickly

[Stéphane Aubry]

Today, with my two sons, we were back in the area, searching for adults (if possible...) N. maura and N. tessellata.
We found 8 Natrix tessellata and unfortunately only one N. maura, all were juveniles...

The first snake of the day but also the only N. maura...

One of the 8 N. tessellata

more pics http://www.pbase.com/stephaubry/natrix_maura_050512 and http://www.pbase.com/stephaubry/natrix_tessellata_050512