Herpetological trip to Oman: 4. to 17. Februar 2009
trip report by Thomas Bader, Gerald Ochsenhofer and Christoph Riegler

Day 10 (13-Feb-2009): From the Desert to the East Coast

After inflating the tires we visited the sandy garden from the day before during the best time of the day in the late morning. Lo and behold! We found several Acanthodactylus schmidti – the typical and most common fringe toe lizard for the sandy deserts. This beautiful orange patterned lizard was searching for prey in the sand dunes and when approached, it started to sprint to the next bush.

Omanosaura jayakari

We also found our first (alive) sandfish - Scincus mitranus in the dunes. Several juvenile skinks were observed but we didn’t manage to catch one, because when we dug on the place, where they dove into the sand, they must have swam already far away and disappeared.  While we tried to dig for a skink we excavated a Stenodactylus arabicus – this nocturnal gecko is famous for its webbing toes, which allows him to dive beneath the sand. Finally Gerald could catch a really big sandfish by chance, just before we wanted to leave the site. The skink is nicely colored with orange stripes on its flanks and yellow dots on its back. A really beautiful animal!

So ended the chapter of the Wahiba Sands, although the offshoots of this desert reach the Indian Ocean at some points, and this area was still a target of our last days. On the way to our next accommodation, the Wadi Bani Khalid - one of the most beautiful wadis of the country - was only a short detour, and so we decided to drive there, although we knew, that on Fridays the wadi is highly frequented.

We stopped at some pools just before the mass tourism had started and we caught some fish in the pools – unfortunately it was not a species, which was interesting for the museum in Vienna. In the nearby rocks we came across a juvenile Omanosaura jayakari that we decided to catch for good photos. When Thomas pinched the lizard with his rod, the lizard dashed into the water and swam to a small island in the pond, where we could perfectly photograph it. In the meantime the others found several juvenile lizards in the surrounding rocks and the longer we watched them, the more trusting they became and finally we had some good shots.

The pools of the wadi were highly frequented by locals and guest workers. It is a magnificent landscape with big falajes and huge pools which reminds one at the Krka water falls in Croatia. We swam in the pools, jumped from the rocks and enjoyed ourselves after the dry experience in the desert. The only herpetological record was Bufo arabicus in some small ponds. After some hours of recreation we decided to proceed to Ras al Hadd, the easternmost point of the Arabian Peninsula.

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Gallery Day 10: From the Desert to the East Coast (51 pictures)

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Day 11 (14-Feb-2009): Along the East Coast

overview and map

Overview Day 1: Arrival & Bathina lowlands Day 2: Hills behind Muscat Day 3: Eastern Hajar mountains Day 4: Final day in the Bathina lowlands Day 5: Crossing the mountains to Nizwa Day 6: Direction Saudi Arabia Day 7: Sayq Plateau Day 8: Jebel Shams & nighttrip Day 9: From Nizwa to the Wahiba Sands Day 10: From the Desert to the eastcoast Day 11: Along the eastcoast Day 12: Day of rest & late night show Day 13: Highlights at the eastcoast Day 14: Turtles & retourn trip Summary