Lyciasalamandra

[wouter]

I just returned from a very succesful herping/birding trip to south-western Turkey. Here are some of the Lyciasalamandra I observed there together with two fellow students;

Lyciasalamandra antalyana

Lyciasalamandra billae

Lyciasalamandra luschani luschani

And the habitat;

Lyciasalamandra luschani basoglui

And again habitat;

And the last one; Lyciasalamandra luschani finikensis

 

[ryan]

Very beautiful, not many posts on these guys.

 

[mark]

Very nice photos Wouter! Looks like a very successful trip.

 

[abrahm]

Beautiful animals and excellent photographs. I really wish that I could go explore the world and see all the interesting animals.

I'm glad I have Caudata.org to show me pictures of the places I can't visit.

 

[pierson]

Outstanding! They somewhat remind me of North America's Ensatina.

 

[ryan]

Me too! Ensatina have so many subspecies its easy to get confused.

I think they should go on CC because there isn't many pics of these species there.

(Message edited by i_love_necturus on February 24, 2007)

 

[joseph]

Very cool! I was about to say what Pierson said also.

 

[samuel]

very nice photos, looks like a total succes on the trip

 

[henk]

Well Wouter, thanks for these great shots of quite colorfull animals ! I think I now know what type of trip I have to shedule in for the coming years !

 

[wouter]

Thanks for the comments everyone. Henk, you're right, they are beautiful camera subjects. Here are some more;

Lyciasalamandra billae

Ophisops elegans macrodactylus

Mauremys rivulata

 

[henk]

Well Wouter this is what they call 'putting some salt into the wound'... ;-). Looks like it was an nteresting stone turning feast... I think you also got to see lots of sympatric living millipedes or scorpions ?

 

[wouter]

Henk, we found the same species of millipedes in most of the Lyciasalamandra localities. We've seen a very large quantity of scorpion species, with some very large and fierce ones, which I did not expect so close to Europe. I didn't bother to photograph all of them, since combining herping and birding was difficult enough. Surely, this 5-6 cm greenish one from south Antalya was impressive;

If anyone can ID this I'd be gratefull!

 

[henk]

Well I'm not a scorpion specialist , but I have some contacts who may help... I surely would have left the birds alone and stayed on the soil (meaning I would have switched lenses far less)
When in the US I always know we are in hte good Plethodont spot if we find millipeds and scorpions so that's why I asked about it, since it seems to be the same for Lyciasalamandra.

I will get back with info on the scorpion if I can..

 

[mike]

Those are great photos of some amazing salamanders. The habitat photos are great too, because they put the animals in their ecological context.

Thanks for posting!

 

[stefanie]

Wow! What great animals you captured!

 

[cameron]

It's not a scorpion I have ever seen before. I am certain it is Euscorpius carpathicus. They are very common in southern Europe.

 

[christian]

That's a wonderful trip wouter! Nice animals and pictures.

 

[sergé]

Hi Wouter,

we found this species of scorpion also many times when we searched for Lyciasalamandra it is Iurus dufoureius asiaticus. For many more info on great scorpions...look at this website
http://www.ub.ntnu.no/scorpion-files/european_scorp.php