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Highlights from our 2023 Herpetology Tours
Operations Manager & Tour Leader
18th December 2023
In this article we share the fantastic highlights from Naturetrek’s Herpetology Tours in 2023.
We offer the world’s largest selection of herpetology-focused holidays and warmly welcome participants of all levels of experience onto them – being a keen naturalist is the only requirement – do join us in 2024!
NB: All photos shown below were taken during the tours. To view the images larger, please click on the crosshairs in the centre of each image.
In November, a tailormade version of our group tour produced 94 species of reptiles and amphibians, amongst a host of superb birds, mammals and invertebrates – so much so that it is difficult to select two paragraphs of highlights!
The reptiles included Rinkhals, Puff Adder, Setaro's and Transvaal Dwarf Chameleons, Common Flap-neck Chameleon, Northern and Common Crag Lizards, Swazi, Baberton and Van Dam’s Dragon Lizards, Common Giant Plated Lizard, Herald Snake, Rhombic Egg-eater Snake, and Spotted Bush Snake. Amphibians included the Rain Frogs (Bushveld, Passmore and Northern Forest), Mottled Shovel-nosed Frog, Red-legged Wot Wot, Brown-backed and Natal Tree Frogs, African Bullfrog, Banded Rubber Frog and Snoring Puddle Frog, plus many more!
Additionally, the participants were able to study and photograph the exquisite East African Gaboon Adder, Boomslang and Southern Twig Snake which had been rescued from properties on callouts during the day at St Lucia.
30+ African Savannah Elephants (with the participants as sole viewers!), White and Black Rhinos (both with youngsters), Spotted Hyena, Hippopotamus, Sharpe's Grysbok, Natal Red Duiker, Samango Monkey, Southern Lesser and Thick-tailed Greater Galagos, Greater Cane Rat, Red and Smith’s Bush Squirrels, Crested Guineafowl, Blue Crane, Purple-crested Turaco, African Green Pigeon, Burchell's Coucal, Black-backed Puffback, Red-capped Robin-Chat, Thick-billed Weaver, African Grass Owl, African Wood Owl, African Woolly-necked Stork, Fiery-necked Nightjar, Marabou Stork, Bateleur, Cape Vulture, Blue Waxbill, Golden-breasted Bunting, Mocking Cliff Chat, Broad-billed Roller, Lucia Widow and Horned Rockdweller made up just a selection of the other wildlife highlights.
Borneo is undoubtedly a paradise for the naturalist and our herping tour to Sabah provides the opportunity to enjoy some simply fantastic species. Our group visiting in October enjoyed the three Pit Vipers, Sabah, Sumatran and Bornean Keeled, plus Common Mock Viper, Red-tailed Racer, Schmidt's Reed Snake, Bornean Slug Snake, Black-headed Cat Snake, Bornean Angle-headed Lizard, Cat Gecko, Sabah Flying Gecko and Spiny Turtle, whilst amphibians included Kinabalu and Kobayashi Horned Frogs, Tree Hole Frog, Green Spotted Rock Skipper, Kinabalu Sticky Frog, Kinabalu Slender Toad, and File-eared Frog.
Other wildlife highlights included Bornean Green Magpie, Storm’s Stork, Wrinkled Hornbill, Stork-billed Kingfisher, Bornean Crested Fireback, Whiskered Treeswift, Blue-eared Kingfisher, Orangutan, Proboscis Monkey, Sunda Leopard Cat, Red-leaf Monkey, Lesser Mousedeer, Small-toothed Palm Civet, Red Giant Flying Squirrel, Cream-coloured Giant Squirrel, Bornean Pygmy Squirrel and Slow Loris. The incredible inflorescence of Rafflesia keithii was undoubtedly one of the wildlife highlights of the tour!
Exploring Albania’s stunning landscapes with popular leader Dr. Enerit Sacdanaku, participants across our two departures enjoyed seeing and photographing Nose-Horned Viper, Aesculapian Snake, Dahl's Whip Snake, Eurasian Worm Snake, Dalmatian Algyroides, Albanian Pool Frog, Yellow-bellied Toad and numerous others.
Other highlights included Black-headed and Cirl Buntings, Tree Sparrow, Golden Eagle (rare in Albania), Red-backed Shrike, a large colony of Alpine Swifts, Large Copper, Glanville, Spotted and Queen of Spain Fritillaries, Southern and Eastern Festoons and Nettle-Tree Butterfly.
Two groups and one tailormade tour explored southern Morocco for reptiles and amphibians in May and September this year.
Vipers are always crowd-pleasers on Naturetrek tours and species seen in Morocco included Puff Adder and Saw-scaled, Desert Horned and Sahara Sand Vipers. The latter two species use fascinating ‘sidewinding’ locomotion, leaving beautifully photogenic tracks. The High Atlas extension on the tailormade tour additionally produced Mountain Viper. Other snakes included False Cobra, a 1.5m-long male Montpellier Snake and Sahel Egg-eating Snake, plus several others.
Lizards are abundant in Morocco and the Kingdom has some wonderful examples. Across the groups we enjoyed such species as Mediterranean Chameleon, Northern Elegant Gecko, Helmethead Gecko, both Atlas and Moroccan Day Geckos, Moroccan Spiny-tailed Lizard and a great number of the fringe-fingered lizards.
As usual, we checked any cisterns we passed for trapped animals, but thankfully many of these structures had already had their captives rescued by earlier herping groups.
Notable botany included Teucrium chardonianum, Hannonia hesperidum, and Citrullus colocynthis whilst the mammals consisted of Golden Wolf, North African Elephant Shrew, spiny mice, Lesser Egyptian Jerboa, and the birdlife Lanner Falcon, Montagu’s Harrier, Northern Bald Ibis, Red-rumped Wheatear, White-crowned Wheatear, Moussier's Redstart and Pharaoh Eagle Owl. Invertebrates included Conehead and Desert Mantids, Crimson Speckled, Egyptian Predator Beetle, Violet and Orange-winged Dropwings.
In April and May, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC) experts joined forces with herpetologists from the Naturetrek office to lead two Naturetrek groups through biodiverse sites in Dorset. With ARC’s licensed staff, the two groups were privileged to enjoy the study of the UK’s rarest herpetofauna including Smooth Snake, Sand Lizard, Natterjack Toad and Great Crested Newt. May’s group enjoyed all of Britain’s native herpetofauna species (apart from, would you believe, Common Frog!) in addition to both introduced lizard species: Italian Wall and Western Green – the latter of which was the UK’s first record of the species for the year.
Across the two groups, other wildlife highlights on this superb two-and-a-half-day break included Noctule bat, Nightjar, the iridescent larvae of Bloody-nosed Beetle, Water Scorpion, Great Diving Beetle, Beautiful Demoiselle, Heath Tiger Beetle, Rose Chafer, multiple Emperor Moths, Green Hairstreak, Dartford Warbler and Bearded Tit.
In April, two groups explored the beautiful Greek Peloponnese peninsula in search of the region’s reptile and amphibian fauna. Herpetology highlights seen across the tours included African Chameleon, Nose-horned Viper (ssp. meridionalis), the endemic subspecies of Balkan Spadefoot Toad (ssp. chloeae), the Peloponnese endemics Greek Rock Lizard and Limbless Skink, European Worm Snake, Four-lined Snake, Leopard Snake and Europe’s only boa, Javelin Sand Boa.
Birds enjoyed included Great Spotted Cuckoo, Collared Pratincole, Greater Flamingo, Dalmatian Pelican, Short-toed Snake Eagle, Long-eared Owl, Eurasian Eagle Owl, Middle Spotted Woodpecker, Great Reed Warbler, Eastern Olivaceous Warbler, Western Rock Nuthatch, Blue Rock Thrush and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear, with mammal highlights of Golden Jackal, Stone Marten, Wild Boar and Northern White-breasted Hedgehog.
Naturetrek’s inaugural herpetology holiday of the year took us to Namibia, where over 60 reptile and amphibian species were enjoyed across Namibia's breathtaking and vast landscapes! Species included Namaqua and Flap-neck Chameleons, Web-footed Gecko, Peringuey’s, Puff, Horned and Namaqua Dwarf Adders, Marbled Rubber Frog, Hoesch's Pygmy Toad and Rough Sand Frog, plus numerous little-known species including Kunene Shield Cobra, Namib Barking Gecko, Festive Gecko, Marais’ Gecko, Dwarf Plated Lizard, and Western Sandveld Lizard. Our multi-national participants were likely the first Australian, Belgian, British and Dutch nationals to see many of these latter species. The group also had the chance to photograph and learn about such exciting species as Black Mamba, Barred Spitting, Anchieta’s and Cape Cobras, and White-throated Monitor, which had been rescued from properties in Windhoek and were being relocated.
Mammal highlights from the tour included Bat-eared Fox (a vixen with two month-old cubs being particularly memorable), Meerkat, (Angolan) Southern Giraffe, Black-faced Impala, Plains and Mountain Zebras, Chacma Baboon and several others. The excellent birdlife included the endemic Dune Lark, Pygmy Falcon, Augur Buzzard, Lappet-faced Vulture, Lanner Falcon, African Harrier-Hawk, Rüppell’s Parrot, Damara Tern, Marabou Stork, Bokmakierie and a plethora of other exciting species.
