Montenegro trip 2012

[Bobby Bok]

I hope not to bore you guys but I have been doing another trip to the Balkans, Montenegro this time. Together with Peter Oefinger, Sander Schagen, Bart Misana and Ronald Zimmerman I've spend a week (way to short for this beautiful country!) mostly in the rugid interior of the country but also a few days at more coastal based search sites. Doing a trip here in summer proved to be very delightful, the mountains are stunning, temperatures not to high and thus herpetofauna not in summer torpor. The coast was a different story, crowded with white-bellied Russians and temperatures of 34 degrees made herping there difficult but all in all we managed to see almost all of our most wanted species. Here are some pictures:

Turkish gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus)


Catsnake (Telescopus fallax)



Greek slow worm (Anguis graeca)


Stunning Prokletije mountains


Meadow viper (Vipera ursinii macrops)



Sharp-snouted rock lizard (Dalmatolacerta oxycephala)


Mosor rock lizard (Dinarolacerta mosorensis)




Adder (Vipera berus bosniensis)


Peter's most wanted species, Albanian shit, eh pool frog (Pelophylax shqipericus)


It was an amazing trip! For more pictures please check out my webpage -> http://www.herpet.mysites.nl/mypages/herpet/529051.html

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Great! Beautiful colours on that ursinii and nice bosny boy!

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Here's your target - hit n° 3 by the end of the year!
All you need is that Cretan wall lizard you'll see later this month & in autumn, the Big Peloponnese 5 you're missing - epeiroticus, cephallonica, Ophiomorus, situla and quatuorlineata

[Thomas Reich]

Top-class report, Bobby! You found an incredible amount of species during one week in hot summer. And I like your pictures a lot. The first picture of Telescopus is simply great. I always like a wide depth of field, so that the whole animal is in focus. Long live the small sensor of your camera.

[Jürgen Gebhart]

WOW, WOW, WOW, awesome!!!

I never can get bored when I saw Top-pics like yours!

[Neil Rowntree]

Some amazing pictures - awesome creatures and scenery, i'm very jealous!

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

About that orange stuff on the oxycephala's throat - does anyone know if this is some sort of mite? I know about the Geckobia sp., but that's it.

[Carl Corbidge]

Another top trip and amazing pics from your toy camera (how many trips is that this year?) Did Sander hit his birding targets?

[Michal Szkudlarek]

That I. alpestris larve looks curiously, cool one! Jeroen, what about future herping, any targets? To tick all North American species?

[Laura Bok]

Hey Bobby,

very cool trip report - not only you found many species, but also some very special specimen, like the Zandadder and the alpestris-larva.

I guess I´m repeating myself, but what can I do? - The photos are awesome as usually.

By the way, it´s very irritating to see how joyful you can appear whilst standing in a lake with a stomach flu .

Cheers,
Laura