Herpetological trip to South Portugal - April 2005

translated by Michael Duda

9 th day - the one before last - 25 th of April 2005

Alentejo - between rests of nature and agricultural desert

Udo Schwarzer joined us again, and while we were waiting for him, a big ladder snake passed our way at the meeting point. Our first trip at this day led us to the region of the upper Barao; we already knew the estuary of this river. Unfortunately the river valley was totally dry because of the burning heat, we just found Moorish geckos and Algerian sand lizards - during rainy season this secluded and unsettled valley would have been a herpetological highlight. The diversity of plants was very impressing. We also could see two different kinds of pray mantis ( Empusa and Mantis ).

We decided to go on to the north, were we wanted to make our luck at an ancient dune landscape near the border of the Alentejo - it is said, that Vipera latastei has been seen there. By the way we made a short stop at Aljezur for counting the Spanish terrapins while looking down the bridge. They had been quite numerous - we counted 16 specimen - but we couldn't see any Emys among them.

Afterwards we went on to Odeseixe, to the estuary of those river, on whose middle- and upper course we found the green lizards. We crawled up and old fishermen's path to the plateau alongside of the river and started with our investigations. At the first dune area we had an impressing view to the beach of Odeseixe and the estuary of the Seixe. A little bit more northern the cliffs and the coast of the Alentejo can be seen. This landscape is full of flowers and the density of butterflies is very high - Udo made a first record of a rare species in this area. Only a small stripe of land along the coast is dedicated as protected area; some 100 meters further inland the "agricultural desert" of the Alentejo begins - an area of intensive tillage, a graveyard for amphibians and reptiles, poor on species and specimen.

Grass snake and Lataste`s viper had already been seen at the dunes - unfortunately not by us. Instead of this we stated an extreme high abundance of P. algirus . Udo called this area "contaminated by algirus", because the Algerian sand lizard replaces Psammodromus hispanicus and Podarcis carbonelli , which would live on the same habitats. A little bit more down the coast we came to some old, dilapidated huts, which had been once temporary shelters for the local fishermen. Scouring these huts we found another false smooth snake - the third one - under a piece of rotten wood. It was the biggest specimen, that we had seen; its total length was about 45 cm.

On the way back we walked along the border of a pine forest, which seemed to be suitable as habitat for vipers, but the burning midday heat was of course not the best time to search for them. So we decided to return to Aljezur and search for grass snakes along the river. Unfortunately we failed again, instead of this we found "just" about halve a dozen of viperous snakes.

We were still motivated, so we drove again to the dunes of Bordeira searching for some species, which we still couldn't observe yet. Of course we found another false smooth snake (the fourth and last one) - a specimen, that had not been recorded yet at the monitoring program of Udo. At last we also found our one and only Spanish sand lizard - Psammodromus hispanicus . This small relative of the Algerian sand lizard is quite rare and inhabits impassable landscapes - therefore it is hard to watch, and we thought, that we would never see it. The small lizard is much more inconspicuous than the bigger Algerian sand lizard relative and becomes replaced to more poor areas by its relative

Directly at the beach we could observe one of the most pretty lizards of Portugal - Podarcis carbonelli , a sort of wall lizard , which doesn't even have an adequate English or German name (as far as we know). This species dwells extreme habitats in the cold and windy dunes of the west coast; it can be separated from P. hispanica by its appearance and its habitat preferences. It is close related to P. bocagei , the north-western Iberian wall lizard. This very southern branch had been discovered and described by Udo Schwarzer just short time before. The pattern and the colour of the animals is quite variable, besides they show a distinguishing dimorphism of sexes. We could take photos of sub adult and adult specimen and even of a couple as well. With this observation the day before last had its end.

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