By Plato Stefanopoulos
Chapter 1
I just want a Lacerta, man.
For whatever reason, the coming of late fall reminded me of that one time I flipped and missed a giant Lacerta trilineata male under cover on a cloudy 2020 October day, and my mind became absolutely fixated on the idea. I went to a couple of my usual flip sites in Athens city limits targeting common snakes, but what I really wanted was a Lacerta.
To my astonishment, only a few boards in, I uncovered a large-ish snake that made a mad dash for a hole at the nearby olive tree. Luckily for me, the hole was extremely shallow, and I could easily get it in hand. It was a small adult Eastern Montpellier snake (Malpolon insignitus), and a beautiful one at that! Despite its defensive behavior, I managed to snap some satisfactory pics.
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| Field guide style photo of the Eastern Montpellier snake |
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| Macro of the same snake. Note the characteristic concave dorsal scales. |
The board that the snake was under had a resident ocellated skink (Chalcides ocellatus) that I had previously uncovered 4 times over the course of many months (March-September), which was no longer present, presumably having been consumed by the Montpellier snake.
I proceeded to hit one of my best spots and I actually managed to flip a snake there too, a pretty average older juvenile Dahl’s (Platyceps najadum). Shortly after that I barely avoided getting rained on and ended up taking a short break in the car until the rain subsided. I hit a couple more spots after the rain stopped, to no avail. I contemplated heading North, but I had a very late start and that wouldn’t be possible. I left for the Peloponnese the following day.
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| A humble Dahl’s whipsnake (Platyceps najadum), the second and final snake of the outing |
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| Common combination of items found at impromptu garbage dumps in Greece (pictured in situ) |
After returning from the Peloponnese trip, having seen a couple of Pseudopus DORs there and several adults being posted on Facebook groups, I knew they were out again, so I decided that along with Lacerta, I should also try and target them. I went to my best site for glass lizards in Attica, but before that I decided I should also hit a flip site that almost always yields trilineata. Sadly, this time it did not, but I did find a few green toads and ocellated skinks. After quite the hike, I was finally at my glass lizard spot. There, I flipped numerous ocellated skinks, snake-eyed skinks and finally, I saw a pretty average adult male Pseudopus basking, though I did not bother catching it as it was pretty deep in the branches of a mastic tree. I also saw a subadult Dahl’s basking outside a burrow, which I didn’t get a chance to photograph either since it retreated in an instant.
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| Chalcides ocellatus, the usual suspect |
A couple days passed and me and Charis met up again, this
time in my neighborhood. We checked my usual neighborhood spots but the only
notable things we found were some mating tortoises and a green toad.
Two days later, an old friend was in town for a short while, so we met up and after having lunch, we decided to go on a quick trip to some of my sites in Athens city limits. The weather was honestly kind of chilly (about 60F/15C) and I wasn’t expecting much. To my astonishment, one of my flip sites yielded one hatchling Malpolon as well as an absolutely stunning adult female trilineata, both of which escaped before I could take proper photos, much to my dismay. It was a very bittersweet moment as even though I had finally gotten the lizard I wanted the most, I couldn’t get any decent photos, though at the very least I took some in hand voucher shots that look alright so I shouldn’t be complaining too much.
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| Mediocre-bad in hand shot of trilineata |
Chapter 2:
The old man and the situla
The next morning, I decided to head back to the same area to check out the cover I hadn’t flipped the previous day because I was being lazy. I had a very late start, and the weather was very sunny but also very windy, dry and in the high 60s F. The day started off with a green toad double flip.
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| Two large female green toads as flipped under discarded car parts, one of my favorite kinds of AC |
After getting back in the car and driving for about 40 seconds, I was finally at this sad aggregation of boards in comically open habitat. I pulled up, got out of my car, and completely nonchalantly went to flip a couple pieces that I had only found small green toads under up until that point. In the flash of a second, as I lifted the board, I saw a large snake coiled up in between the layers, and seeing the longitudinal lines, I subconsciously thought it was just going to be a grass snake, but I don’t think my subconscious mind was prepared to even start to soak in what it actually was. I swiftly seized the snake as it attempted an escape, put the board back with my other hand, and looked at the animal I had just caught in absolute disbelief. I immediately ran back to the car, put the snake in a tub and just sat there for a second to collect myself. How was this even real?? I called some friends and family to tell them of the occasion and once I was a bit more composed, I got the snake out to take some photos. After a long and tedious photography session, I released it exactly where I found it.
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| Beautiful and massive (100cm) striped situla just outside of Athens, the snake of a lifetime. |
To put the gravity of finding this snake at this location into context, when I herp in Attica with my friends, we make jokes like “oh, this board is totally gonna have a giant striped situla under it”. We do not even consider the probability of this happening while we’re out looking. But as it would turn out, it can actually happen. I mean, we did expect situla to occur in the general area but we did not expect to find it there of all places. That and the fact that this place has been searched thoroughly for years made it seem pretty much unachievable, but this just shows that you never know what oddity is going to occur next when herping. After this absolutely comical series of events, I went home and the next morning we went to the Peloponnese again.
Chapter 3:
The Peloponnese trip was great, with 4 (almost 5……….) really high profile lifers for me, and all around having a great time in the field. In any case, it was already November by the time we had returned and the herping season was quickly coming to a close, and I knew I had to make these last few days count. On the last warm days of early November, me and a friend met up and we ended up visiting a few of my sites close to Athens. We surprisingly managed to flip a late season Malpolon and trilineata (among a few other animals), both of which were very warm and barely caught. The way the lizard was caught was absolutely ridiculous as well, I had to climb up a tree to get it. It was absolutely worth it though because in the it was one of the most beautiful individuals I’ve ever seen and I got some adequate photos of it before sending it back under its board considering the abominable lighting.
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| A smallish male green toad (Bufotes viridis) |
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| A juvenile Malpolon hatched c. a couple months prior. It had perhaps almost doubled in size as it was almost 45cm in length, showcasing the amazing growth of the species. |
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| One of the nicest trilineata i've ever had the pleasure of seeing. |
As if that was not enough, the weather was still warm and humid as the sun was going down, so I figured I should give road cruising a shot. At the start of the night, there was a huge surge of activity, though the unusually high traffic made things go south. A grass snake had been ran over and was still moving when I found it, and a juvenile viper was ran over by a speeding car in front of me, right as I was about to escort it across the road. That absolutely ruined my mood, but I figured I should keep trying. When I stopped about 100 meters down the road to help a toad cross safely, I saw a large male viper come onto the road in an attempt to cross. The snake was immediately seized, and I helped it across the road and let it go after a few photos. Activity kind of died down after that, and this was one of the last days of road cruising season. Not much herping occurred after that and the reptiles almost completely disappeared within a week, and winter was coming fast. I’m glad I could at least make the last few days count.
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| A nice large-ish adult male nose-horned viper. The penultimate road cruised snake of 2021 |
Species seen: