the online meeting place for all who love our amphibians and reptiles |
|
Interesting records |
Post Reply |
Author | |
-LAF
Senior Member Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 317 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Posted: 15 Jun 2004 at 2:47pm |
On looking through the NBN gateway site at the herpetological records (nice one HCT) there are some VERY interesting observations.
The first thing I noticed was a very intriguing (surely miss-Id'd) smooth snake way oop north. And someWelsh ones... Then, some records that I'm pretty certain are miss-Id'd... The Sand Lizard map show sites around Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire! Well, I lived there for 18yrs and saw hundreds of Z. viviparas in that area, it was a real hotspot, but not a single L. agilis. And I spent nearly every spare summer day looking in all the right places. Remember old record of agilis from spurn point too. Hmmm. Not convinced by that one either. And as for sandys at Chesterfield... I did have one fleeting glimpse of what looked to be a much larger than average lizard on some isolated coastal dunes nr Mablethorpe once but certainly can't envisage it beeing a sandy. On a cursory note, this site... http://www.bostonuk.com/visitors/nature/reptiles.htm shows sand lizards as being present in Lincs. Though the pictured one is certainly not a sand lizard (a common). Metheringham would not be ideal habitat either. Plenty more odd sand lizard locations too. One thing is for sure, I'm definately going back to a site in N. Devon this year where the missus saw a large and very green lizard dissappear under some gorse... at the time I was convinced it must just have been a Z. viv, now I'm convinced it's worth taking another look! Anyway, my appetite has been truly re-whetted for the summer! Cheers, Lee. |
|
Lee Fairclough
|
|
Wolfgang Wuster
Senior Member Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 374 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
I often worry about the accuracy of records of this nature. There are just too many opportunities for things to get screwed up - by recorders with more enthusiasm than knowledge, by the record centres, etc. I rememebr submitting some records of CL and SW to the records centre of A Certain English County - when, a year later, I went through their records I found that the records I had submitted for the two species were transposed. I went to check out some adder sites ontheir records - in several cases, the habitat looked very un-addery, and sure enough, I found grass snakes, for which the habitat was perfect. Just a few examples...
Cheers, Wolfgang |
|
Wolfgang Wüster
School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/ |
|
Post Reply | |
Tweet
|
Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |