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

Day 12 (15-Feb-2009): A Late Night Show and a Resting Day

The settlements along the east coast are traditional fishing villages. Its inhabitants are Wahhabits and people with African origin with a very traditional way of life. The advancement of this region compared to other areas in Oman is quite low, but the flair of a former period can be experienced here like nowhere else.

Sur

During the night we again checked out the best places from the day in order to check the separation regarding time of day in the local herpetofauna. And it was a really impressive result, because we found at least as many species as during the day and even in high numbers. First of all we were surprised to find Stenodactylus leptocosymbotes sympatric (but not syntopic) to Stenodactylus doriae. While the former inhabits compacted sandy areas, the latter occupies loose sandy areas like shifting sand dunes. In this location we found the two species not more than 50 m separated. Maybe these species feed on large crickets, with a yellow body, a black head and very long antennas. Christoph and Gerald also went to some neighboring rocks, where they observed a small colony of Hemidactylus homoeolepis – it seems that these geckos cope in sand deserts with very limited habitats.

The real highlight of this night trip was the observation of 6 different Lytorhynchus diadema in two different sites. All snakes were found active on the sandy surface. Despite the rare and infrequent records from literature in both North Africa and Arabia for us it was the second most commonly observed snake species. The variation of color and pattern is remarkable - some are even pale, while others are striped or spotted. At the first location with loose sand, where we had already found a specimen during the day, we counted four individuals and at the second record with more compacted sand we found two more. It must have been the perfect point of time for this snake. Maybe it was the breeding season, although we couldn’t notice any proof for this speculation. After a short stop at the old city wall of Ras al Hadd, where we only detected some Turkish geckos, we went back to our hotel.

On the next day we had a day of rest with only one herpetological stop at a valley on the way to Sur. There we observed two huge sand snakes, which both escaped. Other records were Pristurus carteri, Stenodactylus leptocosymbotes and Hemidactylus turcicus. On the lagoon we stopped for some bird watching and observed a dwarf eagle and some sea birds.

The actual target of this day was the market of Sur, where we intended to buy some presents for our family members. Also the center of Sur is very traditional and the trade in the market is very busy, animated and managed by locals, while most of the shops are conducted by Indians, like the goldsmith, where we transacted the big business. Suddenly the muezzin started to shout or sing and didn’t stop for about half an hour. It was a very impressive experience at dusk in the backyard of the business quarter, where sheep and goats turned the rubbish bins and ate the waste in absence of green food.

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Gallery Day 12: A Late Night Show and a Resting Day (24 pictures)

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Day 13 (16-Feb-2009): The Highlights at 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