French Adventures

[mark]

I’ve just returned from a whistle stop tour of southern and central France, starting off in Roussillon on the south coast and then travelling through Languedoc to the Pyrenees. Then up through Toulouse to Limousin and finally spent a few days in Indre with some relatives. I didn’t think I would get a chance to do much herping as I was on a sight seeing trip but managed to fit in the occasional ramble into the countryside to look for pools and streams. Many of the ponds are now drying up in the summer heat and adult caudata had left long ago. I was lucky enough to find larvae in a number of places but my larval identification is pretty poor so you’ll have to help me out. Apologies to the mods for the number of anuran and reptile shots, delete them if you like, I thought I’d include them here as they are part of the same trip.

Salamandra larvae found in shallow steam in a wooded valley of the Pyrenees. I would guess S.s.terrestris but given the location it could be S.s fastuosa.

Found in the same stream a darker salamandra larvae. This is much smaller than the one above but more developed, gills were absorbed ready for morphing. Probably the same species as above but I'm not sure.

Habitat

I'm pretty certain this is Triturus cristatus due to the toes and overall size.

It was large in comparison with other larvae

Not sure about these. Probably Lissotriton vulgaris but could be L. helveticus or even M. alpestris given the location.

habitat - this man made trough contained Lissotriton, Triturus, Bombina variegata, Rana temporaria and Rana esculenta. Not bad for something the size of a bath tub.

Some anurans
Bufo bufo - gets rather large in the warmer parts of it's range.

Bombina variegata

Rana temporaria

Rana esculenta

Some reptiles
Lacerta vipipara

Lacerta viridis

Natrix natrix

Enjoy!

 

[william]

great photos! the last 2 larvae photos look like lissotriton larvae to me. could the large one be a marmoratus?

 

[simon]

Those are fantastic pictures. The Lacerta viridis is stunning.

 

[joan]

Very beautiful critters. Makes me miss the herps back home. All we have in northern Manitoba are wood frogs.

 

[micha]

Nice pictures! I especially like the Bufo b. spinosus. Always a joy to encounter one of those large toads.
I get the feeling the large larve is a salamandra too. The smaller larve are more likely to be lissotriton than mesotriton. The other lizard is podarcis muralis not zootoca vivipara.
Love the grass snake! So far south in France they start to look more like astreptophora then helvetica.

 

[wouter]

Hi Mark, very nice! Like Micha says, the large larvae is a Salamandra for certain (note the very broad head) and the Zootoca is a P. muralis. The smaller larvae is definately Lissotriton.

I'm not sure about the brown frog, but I think because of the headshape it could be Rana dalmatina, not R. temporaria. And the final thing... Lacerta viridis only occurs in eastern Europe, this is L. bilineata. I really like the pics, certainly the natrix shots.

 

[mark]

Thanks Micha and Wouter for the ID corrections. I really should buy myself some good field guides

. Salamandra does seem the obvious candidate now that I look at the photo. I had ruled it out because of the brown colouration with black dots and the habitat it was found in.

I was lucky with the natrix. I was sitting on a wall in a village and it appeared right between my feet. I won't try to describe my wife's reaction when I said " can you hold this snake whilst I put a different lens on my camera?"

It's amazing what you can do whist holding a snake...