Crete, Milos and Mainland Greece, april-may 2013


Crete, Milos and our route on the mainland of Greece.
Crete, Milos and our route on the mainland of Greece.

26-04 - 12-05, a herpetological trip to Crete, Milos & mainland Greece

 

 

© All CONTENT & PHOTOGRAPHS G.J. VERSPUI 2013 ©

Unless stated otherwise.

 

 

 

For viewing the photos in a bigger size, just click on them

 

 

Milos was already planned for spring 2012, but other trips made that  impossible, so this year it was happening, together with Bobby Bok I also wanted to visit the Pindos Mountains and the Prespa Lakes on the mainland of Greece.

 

I also made the plann to visit the North East of Greece as an extra bonus, together with my girlfriend who would come over for the last 5 days, in 2005 we already visited that area and had some good memories.

 

When Bobby heard of my planns of visiting the North East, he asked if he could also hide somewhere in our car, ÿou wont even notice I will be there, he said...

So I asked the boss and she was not very enthusiastic about it, she was afraid that the animal searches would rule those days, off course she was right!

 

So Bobby tried to find some more people who were interested in doing a big "Tour de Greece".

He searched and searched, but could not find good Dutch amigos except for our good friend Walter Berkema (WOUTERRRRR) , but unfortunatly he could not make it in the end.

 

So what to do next, maybe ask the southern crazy bunch from a former part of the Netherlands, I think they call it Belgium now....

Bert Vandebosch & Jeroen Speybroeck were the guys we were looking for!!

 

We still needed a big strong German feller who could carry the luggage, so for the Milos part Daniel Bohle was also participating, after Milos we changed Daniel for Laura Tiemann, who went with us on our mainland adventure.

 

All Lizard photo's are made 'In Situ', unless mentioned otherwise, this means that the lizards are photographed the way that they are found. Patience and some luck is what you need to get that job done....

 

 

Crete, 26th of April.

 

Yes, yes, I know, nothing is said yet about Crete.......I had the chance to leave a day earlier then the others and found out that a ticket to Chania, Crete and the next day to Athens was actually € 50 cheaper then flying straight to Athens.

 

So off to Crete, where I had 24 hours to kill, what can I do on this island......maybe look for the 2 endemic herp species of Crete, I visited 3 beautifull locations that day, first location was the Agia Lake.

 

The Next place was Kourna Lake, a really nice place, lots of little restaurants around the lake, so being hungry was almost impossible.

During the day I walked on the shores of the lake and saw many Cretan water Frogs, some juvenile Balkan Green Lizards, Dice Snakes and Balkan terrapins.

 

I did not see the Cretan Wall Lizards there, but at a beach close to the lake I found them, not in high numbers, only 2 females and 1 male.

 

After diner I walked on the shores of the Lake again and found many Cretan water Frogs again, but this time they were more easy to approach.

 

Not to warm anymore from walking through the water for more then an hour, I stepped into bed, my room had a view on the lake and I had a Turkish Gecko as a pet, a great place to stay.

 

In the morning I left Kourna Lake and went with a detour into the direction of Chania airport, a flat tire was the reason I was too late at the rental company, but it was not a problem.

 

Around 13:50 I flew to Athens and had to wait untill 06:00 the next morning for our flight to Milos.

 

From Athens to Milos

I arrived at Athens around 14.30 and became a very good customer at the Mac Donalds, after 3 meals and 5 hours Bobby also arrived from Amsterdam, to celebrate his arrival we bought an other meal at this hamburger toko.

 

We killed the time with doing nothing except for some couch to couch frisbee activities with 3 French female travelers.

We decided to sleep on a couch in the Mc Cafe, we could have taken a hotel, but our flight was very early the next morning and a room at the sofitel hotel across the street was at least € 183.

 

Around 01:00 Daniel arrived and shorly after that Bert and Jeroen.

 

It became one big crazy airport party, at least, that is what they told me, I felt so safe with this company, that I slept like a baby on my couch.

 

 

The flight to Milos....I cant remember anything from that either.

 

 

The first Milos day

On our first day we went to our studios first and dropped off our luggage, it was still very early so the rest of the day we visited several places on the island, at the first stop we found millions of Kotschy’s Gecko's, in lower numbers some Turkish Gecko's, Milos Wall Lizards, Snake-eyed Skinks and Balkan Green Lizards.

Bobby and Daniel both found a Grass Snake and I was lucky and found the first Milos Viper of the trip.

 

The temperature was very high that day, so we used some Greek beers to cool down in the evening.

In the late afternoon of the first day we went to the area aound a lake, here Jeroen and I were lucky, we managed to make some good photos of a pretty male Milos Wall Lizard, Daniel found a Balkan Terrapin.

 

Hungry and a bit tired we drove back to Adamas for diner, and after we had at least 1,5 kg of greek food we went back to the lake.

 

Just before we went there we met with Guillaume Gomard and his friend Alan, they were also on the island to look for the local Reptiles and Amphibians, at the lake Bobby found an other Milos Viper and Guillaume and Daniel both found a Cat Snake.

 

 

29th of april, second day on Milos.

At first we went to the lake again to photograph some Milos Wall Lizards, before we knew it, it was pretty hot and the lizards were very fast and not easy to approach.

 

Next target was the Frog spot that we had from Matt, yesterday we already saw many Water Frogs, but the pond was not very inviting to get in.

Matt's place was better, Bobby went in with a piece of wood and then decided that it would be much easier with a net, 15 min. later he went in with his net and found a big 'Milos Water Frog'.

 

Next to the concrete frog habitat I chased some lizards with pretty good results..

Daniel looked like he had an heatstroke there, but he was just practising his acting skills, one day he will be the next George Clooney.

 

That evening we went to some waterholes, it looked very good, but we saw nothing, untill Bobby spotted a not so lucky Milos Viper that fell into a man made waterhole, it was on a ladder spot, we pulled out the ladder and released the now lucky viper.

That night I could not sleep, I heard strange noises coming from a room 15 meters from our room, it sounded like there was some naked wrestling going on and one of the competitors was not winning......2 against 1 if you ask me.......

 

 

April 30th, our last Queens Day ever.

 

In the morning we planned to go to a nice area near Plaka, but where was Jeroen.....he decided to do some extra sleeping to regain his strenght. Bobby and Bert had very fake innocent looking faces when I asked them about Jeroen.

 

At this place the Milos Wall Lizards turned out to be better photomodels then at other places, Kotschy’s Gecko's were around in high numbers again and we were finally lucky with some Balkan Green Lizards, I photographed 2 of them 'In Situ' and we caught a female.

 

Bert also found his first Milos Viper ever and it was an impressive one, after a photoshoot we went back to the studio and picked up Jeroen, he looked like new and was ready for some hardcore herping, but first we wanted to have some food.

 

Like every day we also did some swimming on this special day, no need to say that Bobby was the first in the water, when I came in he asked me if I could teach hime some wrestling moves, he did not want to tell me why, but everything became very clear to me, the noises from last night and 1 guy walking a bit funny and 1 who needed extra rest.... 

 

When we started the wrestling Bobby suddenly became very strong, I could not control hime anymore, so I grabbed something sharp from the bottom and cut him open like a pig...he was bleeding badly and I told him it was my watch that accidentally cut his body....he believed me...sorry amigo!!

 

Later that afternoon we went to the west side of Milos and searched in a nice valley were there were still several places with water, we did not see any vipers, but the area was very beautiful and I managed to photograph a big male Balkan Green Lizard.

 

In the late afternoon we went back to a place with lots of things to turn around, here I found an adult striped Leopard Snake, which was close to shedding its skin.

 

After some special greek food we went to the same place as we did in the morning, one guy walked straight to the place where the Milos viper was released in the morning and this turned out te be a good choice, he saw 3 vipers in the wall, 2 of them were very large and very dark, Bert grabbed one and brought it to a place where we could make some photos, with almost 90cm this was a very impressive viper.

 

May 1st, the last day on Milos.

On the last day we first drove into some kutchauffeurs, German tourists who rented a light motorbike had an accident, both were not looking that good, so we waved and told them it was only 10km to Adamas......

 

No, we stopped and helped them, I brought them to the hospital in Plaka and Bobby drove their scooter back to Adamas, after this we searched at some valleys on the west side on the island, Daniel saw 6 vipers and I found 1, after some photographing we went back to Adamas for some food, the evening was spent at the lake again were Bobby found a Cat Snake and our French amigo Guillaume found an other small viper.

 

The next morning we had an early flight to Athens.

May 2nd, Daniel out, Laura in, Athens to Pindos Mountains.

When we arrived at Athens airport, we noticed that a very blond woman was watching us and because we are not used to talk to the other strange species, we choose Bobby to talk to her, he walked towards her and made a strange testosterone sound, she looked up and the big tough Bobby fainted in front of her.....(I think he faked the whole thing)

 

The blond woman lifted the bobman up like he was a feather and brought him to us, we were very afraid, but when she told us she likes salamanders the fear was gone and we decided to take her with us.

 

We also said goodbye to Daniel, cheers mate, I enjoyed your company, see you next time!!

 

We picked up 2 rental cars and drove towards the Pindos mountains, a 5 hour drive, Bobby and the blond woman were with me in our peugeot 107, the blond woman had a name, we were allowed to call her Laura Tiemann, Lauren or Wilma. (or was that only me having some difficulty with names)

 

Like I mentioned before we had a 5 hour drive and the temp was very high. People with the license know that it is very important that the co-driver stays awake and he did for the first hour. Thanks back seat co-driver for really staying awake.

 

Our route passed the Meteora monasteries, it looked amazing so we passed it with 90 km/h...

 

In the late afternoon we arrived at the Pindos Mountains and climbed up and hoped to find the Greek Meadow Viper, unfortunatly we did not ...... but some Yellow-bellied Toads, Greek Stream Frogs, Alpine Newts, Common Wall Lizards and Eastern Green Lizards were seen instead.

 

When last light was around, we went to Metsovo, photograhed some Common Toads on the road and found us a nice hotel, getting a meal was more difficult, but we succeeded in the end.

May 3rd, Pindos again and ==>Prespes Lakes.

We woke up early to have a bigger chance for finding a Greek Meadow Viper, when we parked the car at an altitude of 1200m we saw that the area that we wanted to visit (alt.1700-1900m) was already in the sun.

 

We climbed up again and found the same as the day before, Yellow-bellied Toads, Greek Stream Frogs, Alpine Newts, Common Wall Lizards and Eastern Green Lizards, but now I also found a female Nose-Horned Viper without a horn, Bobby and Laura climbed up and found an other Nose-Horned Viper, a Smooth Snake and some Sand Lizards.

 

When they came down the mountain Bert, Jeroen and myself were already sleeping in the meadow and hoped that the LB-buddy-team came back with a Greek Meadow Viper, but that was not the case.

 

After photographing the animals and almost killing an other filthy view-blocking animal-loving taaiaap, we talked a bit about what to do, the conditions were great and still we did not find a Greek Meadow Viper spending more then 8 hours with 5 persons on the mountain, so we decided to move North to the Prespes Lakes.

 

When we were almost there I found a Aesculapian Snake and at the same place we saw some Eastern Green Lizards, one of the best looking males had a very short tail, so all the ladies that he had are now moving to the next-door male Lizard, horrible thought!

 

When we arrived at the Prespes Lakes we went to an area with a lot of ruins, here we saw many Erhard's Wall Lizards, 2 Hermann's Tortoises with only 3 legs and some Balkan Green Lizards.

 

The sky showed some strange colors, so that meant rain and a lot of it!!! We went back to the village to get an hotel, it was one of the best ones ever, after some cheap food made by unfriendly people we went out and the rain was already gone, but it was enough for a lot of amphibian activity.

 

We saw many Eastern Spadefoot Toads, some Green Toads, Marsh Frogs, a big Agile Frog, Macedonian Crested Newts  and a Grass Snake. We also heard some Common Tree Frogs calling, but we decided to look for them the next night.

 

We found our beds around 01:00.

 

May 4th, around the Prespes Lakes, swimming included..


Good morning, todays program: Back to the ruins, swimming, catching newts, finding Dalmatian Algyroides and a search for Treefrogs at night.

 

We first went back to the ruins, hoping to find a Four-lined Snake, next to the car I found a couple Balkan Wall Lizards, Bert found 2 good looking Nose-horned Vipers and I found a juvenile Caspian Whip Snake, Erhards Wall Lizards were everywhere and many of them were practicing romance while an Orange Tip butterfly - Anthocharis cardamines did some nice posing for me. Love it!

 

Very hungry from chasing lizards, butterflies and snakes we went to a good restaurant next to the lake, from the terras we saw Dice Snakes swimming around, so a good reason to go in there our selves, I went into the lake with 2 people who really liked each other....

 

Bert & Jeroen stayed at the terras and did some 'swimming herpers photography'.

 

After the eating, flying and swimming I counted my fingers.. and when I finally realised I still had them all, we went to a muddy pond filled with Marsh Frogs, Smooth Newts, Macedonian Crested Newts, Grass Snakes, next to the pond we found Balkan Wall Lizard, Common Wall Lizards and Bert found some Greek Slow Worms.

 

In the late afternoon we went to an other side of the lake to look for Dalmation Algyroides-(Algyroides nigropunctatus) , I saw 3 of those basterds, but they were very shy and every time (3times) I was about to make a photo they ran again..

So Hungry again, I could eat a whole bucket of bread...so we drove to the same restaurant and had an other great meal.

 

Last mission of the day was photographing some Common Tree Frogs, we found them by walking towards their call, I actually was 5 minutes above one, before I found it, I heard it can happen to the best ones...but I still managed to find 4 of them and made some photo's of calling male Common Tree Frogs, a good way to end this day!

 

May 5th, No Vipera berus bosniensis, some rotten driving & snakes.

 

We left the Prespes Lakes early in the morning, because we had to reach a mountain with an altitude of 2000m before it was too hot.

The area was great and the weather was perfect, maybe too good, we saw many Common Wall Lizards and some Sand Lizards, the much wanted Adders were not seen, so an other viper faillure.

 

We were ready to go after many hours on the mountain, so we decided to go to the east, it was very hot and the light was horrible, I had trouble with staying awake from the first minute and even my best co-driver Laura did not manage to stay awake, but we survived.

 

First stop was at a spot Ilias gave us for Balkan Crested Newts, but the ponds were full with fish, Jeroen and I did some fishing with our own hands, we did see some eggs that could have been from the newts, but were not sure.

Jeroen also saw a Dahl’s Whip Snake, but could not photograph it.

 

No newts, so we went to Lake Volvi, here we looked around for snakes, all of us found 1 or more Dice Snakes, Jeroen found a nice Eastern Montpellier Snake and a Nose-horned viper, I saw a big Caspian Whip Snake escaping the scene and somebody found a subadult Four-lined Snake, I cant remember who it was, but what I can remember is that Bobby was very happy to finally see one for real!

 

Tired, hungry and very excited we found us a Hotel in a small town close to Lake Volvi, in the center there were many people on the street celebrating eastern, all restaurants were closed, but we were lucky and found Jenny, she made us some sandwiches and gave us something to drink. Thank you Jenny!!

 

Bert & Gert were pretty tired from the very exhausting drive, so we went to the hotel room, JeBoLa team stayed in town and became friends with lots of locals, around 04:00 I woke up from lots of noises from 3 deaf people...and 2 waterfalls very close to our balcony, coming from 2 psoli's..

 

The next morning, 2 out of 3 nightcreatures were the first to be ready to go again, but first they needed some coffee.

 

May 6th, Nestos river fun.

 

After the waking up rituals of the JeBoLa team, we went back to Lake Volvi to photograph and release the snakes, the temperature was high again so this was an other colorscheme day, which means wearing as less as possible during the whole day.

 

At our next stop the colorscheme boys were already ready for the situation, the Nestos river was inviting us for a swim and wearing only underwear, Bob and I were the first in the water to do all kind of tricks....the sand that was in my nose afterwards felt really nice.

 

From the river we drove up the hill to have a good view over the Nestos River Gorge, here we searched a bit and I found an European Glass Lizard.

 

At the next stop we searched close to a fresh water lake, we saw a Greek guy that looked a lot like our friend Ilias Strachinis, but I think it was an imitator.....Nice meeting you Ilias!

Caspian Whip Snakes, Grass Snakes, Worm Snake , Spur-thighed Tortoise and Eastern Green Lizards were found at the lake.

 

We left when it was already dark and the guys who were still almost naked at that time had some trouble with a local mosquito-population.

 

We drove in the direction of Alexandroupoli and found us an hotel and something to eat.   Yesssss, so hungry again..

May 7th and 8th, Criminal activities..

 

In the morning Jeroen and Bert were already at the first location to search before the heat would come, it did not help, we found

Hermann's Tortoise, Spur-thighed Tortoise, European Glass Lizard, Worm Snake, Caspian Whip Snake, Eastern Green Lizard and Smooth Newts.

The next place we searched was at an hill with a little stream next to it, here we found Snake-eyed Lacertid, Balkan Stream Terrapin, 2 European Pond Terrapins, Grass Snake and a Balkan Green Lizard.

 

In the afternoon we went into the wetlands of the Evros Delta, this is a protected Natura 2000 site, but the local Greeks use this place to have loud parties with big bbq's and drive through the wetlands with motorcycles.

 

We looked around and I must say that I was the lucky one, finding a special European Pond Terrapin and a juvenile Blotched Snake, March Frogs, Levant Water Frogs and Grass Snakes were also around.

 

I also saw the only Fire Bellied Toad of this trip, but let it escape, so nothing to be proud of.

 

In the late afternoon we headed into some magic olive groves, Jeroen and Bobby both found a Sand Boa and Bert found a juvenile Ottoman Viper, I searched and searched, but only found an escaping Eastern Montpellier Snake and I made some photographs of a very handsome tree hugging Eastern Green Lizard bloke.

 

That evening we had diner in Maronia and prepared for a night to remember.....

 

We went back to the Evros Delta, the Evros River is the border between Greece and Turkey and these are not the best friends, so this area used to be a well guarded militairy zone.

Now this border is used to get illegal immigrants into Europe.

 

So we went back into the Evros Delta to look for Fire Bellied Toads and Eastern Tree Frogs, after making some great photos of the Tree Frogs I saw a police car with its special lights on.....

 

We had to give our pasports and had to follow the police car to the stations, at the station they wanted to know why we were in a forbidden zone, so we explained why.

"So you are looking for rare frog species???" They looked like they saw water burning..

Then they wanted to see all of our pictures, around 1000 per person, except Jeroen, he had an 32 GB card in his camera which was filled with 25 GB of pics....

 

Then we heared that it was a case of national security, so we were brought to bigger police station in Alexandroupoli, here there were already some people who interrogated us all, and they also wanted to look at the pictures.

We were kept in the police station that night and did not get the chance to get some sleep, every time there was someting else.

 

In the morning they took fingerprints from us with reall black ink, the guy who did that was an annoying little prick who kept pulling my finger every time he wanted to make a fingerprint.

Then they made mugshots from the front and from the side and yes, with a number in front of us.

 

Around 12.30 we were brought to the courthouse, because they made a case out of this thing, the charges were illegal trespassing in a forbidden zone. The case started much later then promised, but it took no more then 15 min. to clear us from all charges.

 

Next thing, the promised ride to the other police station and our rental cars did not happen, so we had to take a taxi.

 

Meanwhile my girl Cynthia had landed at the airport of Thessaloniki around 12.30, now it was 14.00 and that airport was still 350 km away, so I started to drive and maybe I went a little bit too fast here and there, but who cared, I already knew every policeman in that area.

 

Around 17.00 I picked up Cynthia and we drove back and had diner with the entire criminal herping crew.

 

Our friend Ilias texted us that he read an article about people that were arrested when looking for frogs, he asked us, if we were those idiots, he already knew the answer...

 

http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.article&id=849

http://www.agelioforos.gr/default.asp?pid=7&ct=4&artid=178216

http://www.makthes.gr/news/reportage/104009/

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_08/05/2013_497793

 

 

May 9th, Dadia forest.

 

After some much needed sleep we had a great breakfast in our hotel and headed for Dadia, at the first stop, close to Bert's old tower we found Fire Salamander larvae and Bobby found some juveniles on land, Yellow-bellied Toads were also there.

 

Next we went into a beautiful valley inside Dadia en found many species there, Fire Salamander larvae, Common Wall Lizard, Eastern Green Lizard, Slow Worm (Anguis fragilis or colchica), Snake-eyed Skink, Spur-thighed Tortoise, Yellow-bellied Toad, Common Toad and Smooth Snake.

The sky was a bit clouded so we did not see any Meadow Lizards yet, but as soon as the sun came we found several of them.

Bob and Jeroen also saw Greek Stream Frog and Agile Frog.

 

I also found a big carabid beetle, some people were really happy with that.

From the road we spotted 2 little ponds and within seconds 2 guys were in there underwear again with a big net in their hands, lets hunt for newts, we found Smooth Newt larvae and Balkan Crested Newt larvae straight away and one holder of the net was not able to catch an adult Balkan Crested Newt, but the other was very succesfull and caught many adults....maybe my purple pendek atracted the newts and Bob's purple pendek scared them off......who knows.

 

Diner was served in Dadia town, after diner Cynthia and myself drove back to the hotel and got stopped by the police.....after this we had a quick look at the river, we saw many, many Balkan Terrapins, some Green Toads and 2 Eastern Tree Frogs.   Welterusten!


May 10th, shopping day...........

 

This day Jeroen, Bobby, Bert & Lauren went back to Dadia to do some nerdy herping things......

I was lucky and got the chance to do some shopping, oooooh I love shopping, much more fun then being in a nice forest like Dadia forest..

 

But, now I did have the chance to take a photo of our courthouse and the police station.

After the city-heaven Cynthia and I did also visit some nice areas to look for animals, first to the beach, where we saw thousends of tiny Green Toads and very big Eastern Spadefoot tadpoles.

 

On the way to Dadia I spotted a pond, so we looked there as well, Eastern Tree Frog tadpoles, March Frogs, larvae of Smooth Newt and Balkan Crested Newt, Grass Snake, European pond terrapin and Balkan Terrapin.

 

We wanted to have diner al together, so I took the pittoresk ocean road from Makri to Maronia, along this very good driveable road I found some Eresus spiders, an handsome male and his very large female.

 

JeBoLaBe team were already close to Maronia and did not have any nice animals or stories to offer to us, so we went out for diner.

 

 

May 11th, Dadia forest again.

 

Good morning, this day JeBoLaBe team already headed in the direction of Thessaloniki and did some location visiting on their way.

 

Cynthia and I wanted to visit Dadia again, because we had good memories from our visits to this area in 2005, in 2005 we found several snakes on the road, easy herping and we hoped for that again.

 

The road gave us what we wanted, at least 4 Spur-tighed Tortoises, countless Hermann's Tortoises, 3 Eastern Montpellier Snakes, 2 Nose-horned Vipers, European Glass Lizards, Eastern Green Lizards and at a brook we saw Yellow-bellied toads, Balkan Green Lizard and Grass Snakes.

 

Just before diner I looked around close to an hill, but I did not see what I was looking for.

 

 

May 12th, Let's go home.

 

This day we will all go back home, we were still far away from the airport so we woke up early and left right after breakfast, after 4 hours of driving we met with the others again at a location for Starred Agama, we were just in time for some group-photos, then they already went to the airport, because Laura's flight was leaving earlier then ours.

 

We said goodbye to Laura and we did not cry, maybe others did, but who cares, everything is how it is supposed to be now!!

 

We looked around at the site and found Lot's of species, Starred Agama and Dahl's Whip Snake were the most interesting.


Conclusion

 

Big trip, that made it possible to see lot's of species from different locations in Greece, only on Crete I was alone, on Milos we had a nice group and on the mainland we changed Daniel Bohle for Laura Tiemann, who also gave her best (and she also gave some heartbeat fasteners to a certain someone....)

So the trip turned out to be great, a bit long I think for a European location.

 

Thanks all for the great company and a special thanks to the Greek police, who desperatly need a new fit test for their members, I saw a lot of unhealthy cops, who can't even run more then 100 m. and if you wanne do some boevenvangen, then you need some stamina..

 

Also thanks,

Daniel Bohle, Maarten Gilbert, Ronald Laan, Peter Oefinger, Thomas Reich, Ilias Strachinis, Henk Strijbosch, Benny Trapp and Matt Wilson.

 


Observed Species

 

 

1.   Fire Salamander - Salamandra salamandra werneri

2.   Smooth Newt - Lissotriton vulgaris ssp. vulgaris & graecus

3.   Alpine Newt - Ichtyosaura alpestris veluchiensis

4.   Macedonian Crested Newt - Triturus macedonicus

5.   Balkan Crested Newt - Triturus ivanbureschi

6.   Fire-bellied Toad - Bombina bombina

7.   Yellow-bellied Toad - Bombina variegata scabra

8.   Eastern Spadefoot - Pelobates syriacus balcanicus

9.   Common Toad - Bufo bufo

10. Green Toad - Bufo viridis

11. Common Tree Frog - Hyla arborea

12. Eastern Tree Frog - Hyla orientalis

13. Agile Frog - Rana dalmatina

14. Balkan Stream Frog - Rana graeca

15. March Frog - Pelophylax ridibundus

16. Levant Water Frog - Pelophylax bedriagae

17. Cretan Water Frog - Pelophylax cretensis

18. American Bull Frog - Lithobates catesbeianus

19. Hermann’s Tortoise - Testudo hermanni boettgeri

20. Spur-thighed Tortoise - Testudo graeca ibera

21. European Pond Terrapin - Emys orbicularis hellenica

22. Balkan Terrapin - Mauremys rivulata

23. Starred Agama - Laudakia stellio

24. Turkish Gecko - Hemidactylus turcicus

25. Kotschy’s Gecko - Mediodactylus kotschyi

26. Snake-eyed Lacertid - Ophisops elegans macrodactylus

27. Dalmatian Algyroides - Algyroides nigropunctatus

28. Eastern Green Lizard - Lacerta viridis

29. Balkan Green Lizard - Lacerta trilineata ssp.hansschweizeri & polylepidota

30. Sand Lizard - Lacerta agilis bosnica

31. Meadow Lizard - Darevskia praticola pontica

32. Common Wall Lizard - Podarcis muralis albanicus

33. Balkan Wall Lizard - Podarcis tauricus tauricus

34. Erhard’s Wall Lizard - Podarcis erhardii riveti

35. Milos Wall Lizard - Podarcis milensis

36. Cretan Wall Lizard - Podarcis cretensis

37. Snake-eyed Skink - Ablepharus kitaibelii

38. Glass Lizard - Pseudopus apodus

39. Slow Worm - Anguis fragilis or colchica

40. Greek Slow Worm - Anguis graeca

41. Worm Snake - Typhlops vermicularis

42. Sand Boa - Eryx jaculus turcicus

--- . Balkan Whip Snake - Hierophis gemonensis  (DOR)

43. Caspian Whip Snake - Dolichophis caspius

44. Dahl’s Whip Snake - Platyceps najadum dahlii

45. Four-lined Snake - Elaphe quatuorlineata

46. Blotched Snake - Elaphe sauromates

47. Aesculapian Snake - Zamenis longissimus

48. Leopard Snake - Zamenis situla

49. Smooth Snake - Coronella austriaca

50. Cat Snake - Telescopus fallax

51. Grass Snake - Natrix natrix ssp. schweizeri & persa

52. Dice Snake - Natrix tessellata

53. Eastern Montpellier Snake - Malpolon insignitus fuscus

54. Nose-horned Viper - Vipera ammodytes meridionalis

55. Ottoman Viper - Montivipera xanthina

56. Blunt-nosed Viper - Macrovipera lebetina schweizeri

57. Red-eared Slider - Trachemys scripta elegans