berus & vivipara, mid-summer

France, British isles

berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Daniel Kane » Thu Aug 02, 2012 8:55 pm

This week I have made a couple of trips to see my local Adders. On Monday I was able to see three snakes basking together; one female and two males. Today there were just two males in the same place. All these snakes were pre-slough with milky eyes, although one male from today had a patch of fresh skin mid-body. I have taken these recent trips as an opportunity to use a new camera toy - Raynox dcr-250 macro attachment, which is essentially a microscope for the end of the lens. I've found it good for the small animals like insects, spiders and today also baby lizards. I've also had some success using this with Adders and a small Dice snake the other week.

Here are some photos;

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2 males & a female


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Male, M7


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M7 - the two joined supralabials and joined temporal scales are useful for identifying him up-close


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Male, M10


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Scale detail of M10


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Zig-zag detail, M10 again


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M10


n.b. I don't see the need to catch these snakes purely for photo opportunities as I visit this site on a fairly regular basis and generally prefer wild shots but, as a study I am doing at university involves identifying individuals, I am required to make a positive id of as many individuals as possible which unfortunately is not always possible in-situ.

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Female vivi from Monday - basking next to three adders


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Male with regenerated tail from today


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Baby from today


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Macro, in-situ


Hope you liked the photos. I'm hoping to be able to take some more of the lizards soon
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Ray Hamilton » Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:17 am

Nice shots - your new set up certainly adds a new perspective.
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Daniel Kane » Sun Aug 05, 2012 7:11 pm

Short trip again today - couple more baby lizards and a still-gravid female, as well as another gravid female who has sloughed since the 30th.

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F11
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Carl Corbidge » Sun Aug 05, 2012 9:09 pm

Hi Dan

Nice to see some juvenile zoots after such a poor summer (unless its been lovely in the lakes?). I never see male adders in summer just females, 2 today and a few lizards one taking up an unusual basking position.
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Neil Rowntree » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:39 pm

Hi Dan,

Some nice shots from your local spot. I also found some tiny 'Zoots' at a cheshire site on saturday, so it'll be interesting to see how many new arrivals i've got in my usual spot next week.
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Laura Bok » Mon Aug 06, 2012 7:25 pm

Aaawwww, aren´t those baby lizards cute ;)? I love the photos,
thanks for posting,
Laura
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Peter Oefinger » Mon Aug 06, 2012 8:18 pm

Laura Tiemann wrote:Aaawwww, aren´t those baby lizards cute ;)? I love the photos,

Laura: aren't all babies cute? :twisted:
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Daniel Kane » Thu Aug 30, 2012 8:49 pm

Some more of the same today - a still gravid female and a year-old one (probably female going by tail length). Lots of lizards around too, most quite approachable down to 10cm or so.

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vivi


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Female berus basing to expose just the rear half or so of her body (and head) presumably to speed up development of her young (less body exposed = bask for longer to reach same temperature) and keep a look out for predators


Does anyone know if berus in other areas of the country (or continent) have given birth yet?
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer

Postby Paul Lambourne » Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:29 pm

Daniel

Had a good look under the refugia at my survey site and no 2012 offspring to be found as yet... looking forward to seeing a few of the little bronze cuties :D

Weather here has been very warm, but very humid...

Cheers

Paul
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Re: berus & vivipara, mid-summer >

Postby Daniel Kane » Sun Sep 02, 2012 11:42 pm

I spent some time today watching the same female from August 30th (a new one for me) bask. I did not realise that there was another snake beneath her until part of 'the' body started to move while the other part remained still and the second snakes' head appeared at the top! Looking at the photos when I got home it seems obvious and I'm not quite sure how I missed it. :lol:

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F12 & un-id'd


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I think this other snake may be a female as well (from colour - hint of a light brown centre to the zigzag in 2nd photo) but I didn't get a good look at it and as already said elsewhere colour can be unreliable in determining gender, and even more so when colours are obscured by fluid between epidermis & dermis. If they are both female it is interesting to see them together as I have not found females together before. Perhaps they are conserving heat by coiling together in the bushes and beneath ground to incubate embryos more effectively, or perhaps it is just the best basking area around. I am hoping that the newborns will be evident within the next two weeks (prepartum shed by second 'female'?), or at least before I go back to university!
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