from 28th of April to 1st of May we (Sebastian Voitel, Joachim Nerz, and me) visited Slovenia. Our main goal was to find the Človeška ribica, which most of you may know as the „human fish“ or just Proteus anguinus.
We weren´t as weather-dependent as usual in this case, as the Proteus inhabits subterranean and cavernous streams. However, we were lucky that it had not rained hardly in months, and so the water levels were low and access to the caves easy.
Still, the weather mattered for all the other species on our wishlist, so let me mention beforehand that it was sunny, very hot, and very dry.
Just after our arrival we stopped at a promising reptile habitat and started searching. We found some beautiful Lacerta viridis and a single Bufo bufo. No Vipera ammodytes however – maybe it was already too hot for them to come out.
In the evening we stopped for a short detour at the springs of the Ljubljanica. I assume the river is inhabited by lots of Proteus, but without professional diving equipment there was no chance to go searching for them. By nightfall however, the area around the small pond started buzzing with life and we found Bufo bufo, Lissotriton vulgaris, larvae of Salamandra salamandra and heard some treefrogs calling in the distance.
The calls of the treefrogs were reason enough to come back to the pond in the next morning, and indeed I spotted a nice female in the bushes.
Another detour to a frequented leisure area with ponds (partially for fish rearing – such a shame) resulted in findings of Anguis fragilis, Bombina variegata and LOTS of calling Pelophylax. Moreover, we were excited to see a turtle basking on a piece of wood – but instead of a European Pond Turtle it was „only“ a Trachemys scripta elegans (or T. scripta scripta, I am not sure here).
In the afternoon of that day, it was time for our first true cave adventure. We booked a private boat trip to a quite touristy cave and were well rewarded: Our guide navigated us to the best spots for Proteus and we were even able to take some quite decent pictures. It was very cool to see so many olms hiding in crevices, sitting on the bottom of underground ponds, or sliding almost majestically through the clear water. An overwhelming experience!
The next day we planned to visit another, not at all touristy cave. We were really pondering if we should visit at all, after we had seen so many olms in that other cave the day before. And, let´s be honest, the odds weren´t too good that we would just walk into that cave, wade through the shallow water, and spot an olm in the near-surface part of the cave. But what should I say – that´s exactly what happened! No, that´s not true, it wasn´t just one olm, but four of them!
After that truly amazing cave adventure we drove in south-easterly direction to see Proteus anguinus parkelj. This subspecies inhabits a very restricted range in southeastern Slovenia and still possesses eyes and pigmented skin. It can easily be admired in the garden shed of the family who discovered it in 1986 – however, taking some good photos there was not too easy (see below why…), so here is just one picture for documentation purposes:
On our way back home we stopped a last time at a pond inhabited by lots of Triturus carnifex and some Bombina variegata. Joachim thought of everything, so we could make use of his aquarium once more:
What we missed:
We didn´t find any Vipera ammodytes, which is, considering the promising spots, most likely due to the high temperatures. If it had been our main goal, we could have tried to search in the mornings or evenings though, and we might have achieved better results.
We found one Hierophis viridflavus, Natrix natrix and Natrix tesselata but didn´t succeed in taking any photos of them – too fast gone. More time and patience would have been the solution here.
What I missed most of course were some Slovenian Salamandras, even more so as we found their larvae on a nocturnal (!) search. Again, it must have been the weather…
I hope you enjoyed my report! At least, I VERY MUCH enjoyed the trip – thanks to Sebastian and Joachim for the great time we had! And thanks to two local girls and some anonymous sources for valuable information about locations – you know who you are.
Cheers,
Laura
. I am not a member of the AG Urodela, "only" DGHT. But maybe you stumbled across my name on caudata.org? At least I think that´s where I read yours the first time...
