Me and Espen Knutsen (from landskilpadde.no) went to Greece in mid-april, the goal for the trip was herping (go figure..) We stayed 5 days on the north-west coast in Epirus (near the city of Parga), and 3 days on the island of Corfu.
We travelled down rather early in the season, with the downside of more unstable weather. And off course, we were rather unlucky with the weather when we were in Epirus. We only had one day without rain, and that was our first day. Luckily when out herping this day, we met a fellow German herper, none other than the author Benny Trapp. He gave us many a tip, hint and even showed us some beautiful animals in the area where we met him. Many a great thanks to him !
I will no bore you with too much writing – but get over to the pictures as quick as possible 🙂
I’ll start off with some habitat/biotope/landscape shots first – and get to the animals further down
One of the turtle species we encountered was Emys orbicularis (European Pond Turtle)
This species is found in both Epirus, and on Corfu. On Corfu we also found a juvenile Mauremys rivulata (Caspian turtle)
Not the best shots of the last species, but it was not very cooperative
Another species we encountered was the Pseudopus apodis (European Legless Lizard), this species we also encountered out in the wet (and rather cold weather) – probably because that is the best time for them to prey upon they’re favourite snack, snails and molluscs
One of the most common snakes in the region is the Four-Lined Snake (Elaphe quaturolineata), we where lucky enough to find both adults and juveniles
Since we also stayed on the island of Corfu, we had the opportunity to go look for Europes only agama, Laudakia stellio (Stellio’s Agama)
Tortoises are fairly common in Greece – we found both species who resides the areas we visited
Testudo hermanni hermanni – Herman’s Tortoise
Testudo marginata – Marginated Tortoise
Here is another snake species – which appears in both Epirus and on Corfu. We only found them on Corfu
Natrix natrix persa
Here is a few other species we encountered
And finally, the favourite – Long-nosed Viper
