Nafpaktos mountains. May 2019

Living in Patras, north Peloponnese, is a blessing if you are a herper. All the rich herpetofauna of Peloponnese is within your reach if you have a day to spend. And as if this was not good enough, if you pass the bridge you find yourself to another world, with species not present in Peloponnese, but just reaching the opposite shore.

So, with friends Alexis and Yiannis, we decided to pass the narrow sea strait and get to the hilly country across. We visited three places, close to each other but all different.

The first spot was an open place with old fields and stone walls. There we found many species in quite good numbers:

Pseudopus apodus, the largest lizard in Europe, was common. We found a few basking

Xerotyphlops vermicularis was also common under rocks

Testudo hermanni found browsing flowers

Lacerta trilineata were numerous, but very shy as usual. Many adult ones didn't give us a chance to photograph them, but this juvenile was very obliging

Hierophis gemonensis, by far the commonest snake in south Greece

Yiannis and Alexis, happy herpers with not so happy Hierophis gemonensis found side by side

If you look closely, you can spot jewels on the stone walls. Mediodactulys kotschyi

Mediodactylus kotschyi was common, this is another individual basking

Just before leaving the place, Alexis caught another Pseudopus apodus

We wanted to try our luck to other places we had been before in the past, so we left the place for an oak forest. On the road we passed some dry, rocky terrain were we came across another species of tortoise. Where there are rocks and very dry landscape, you find marginated tortoises, not Hermann's.

This Testudo marginata was a real survivor. It was crushed by a car long ago, had its carapace broken on the top and the side (not seen here), but everything had been healed long ago, and the animal was again....on the road

Lacerta trilineata adult. This individual was hiding inside the cut trunk of an old oak tree, and basking on it.

Podarcis erhardii was found on the more open spaces of the forest

A nice, minimalistic female Podarcis erhardii

Lucanus cervus remains under a rock in the oak forest

And a large Bufo bufo inflating its body to intimidate us

Off we went to a third spot, a riverine forest, to find some Dalmatian algyroides. On the road we found a creek where Alexis caught another Hierophis gemonensis

The omnipresent Hierophis gemonensis

And of course some Rana graeca tadpoles

At last we reached our spot, where in the autumn we had found Podarcis erhardii and Algyroides nigropunctatus, but it was very hot and we were tired. Luckily it was a shady spot.

Algyroides nigropunctatus home

Pelophylax ridibundus in the river. The species co-existed with Rana graeca

The star of the day, one of our main goals for the day: Algyroides nigropunctatus

Algyroides nigropunctatus were common, basking on the rocks of the river