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Thought I'd share a couple of things from the last few weeks...

Firstly, a few reptiles from a quick outing in Surrey:

Being able to watch this pair was a pleasure -




Then whilst surveying a site near Swindon today I came across this deceased specimen, seems to be quite chequered compared to other grass snakes I've seen - you think maybe this is just because of its state of decomposition? or has anyone seen a 'chequered' one?




Your thoughts please!

To lift the mood again, here's a cute litte fella from today...


Neil

this checkered specimen looks very interesting. I'm sure this doesnt depend on drying or decomposition.
Grass snakes with this pattern are known from greek islands and a few sports from the Aegean Turkish coast.
Never seen such in central Europe.
Mario

Yeah it's an interesting one. I hope to get back to the spot to see if there's any more around.

Don't suppose anyone has photographed a chequered specimen from any of their trips they could post?

Neil

Neil Rowntree wrote:Yeah it's an interesting one. I hope to get back to the spot to see if there's any more around.
Don't suppose anyone has photographed a chequered specimen from any of their trips they
could post?

Depends on what you mean by "chequered enough"... A genuine N. natrix schweizeri, or something like this:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2206&p=21472#p21472
Or maybe I misunderstood the point? Also possible - sorry if so.

Not sure how I missed those pics earlier - Thanks for the link!

Neil

Four months on and I eventually found a live 'chequered' N.natrix specimen:




On the subject of unusual patterns/colours, I also managed to find an orange A.fragilis - I hadn't seen one like this before:



Neil

Thanks for posting those colour/pattern morphs Neil. Really interesting!

Nice variations! The Natrix reminds me of the ones in my area. I posted earlier this year a picture of a big female with similar pattern.

Cheers Lee - just spotted your berus photo - good stuff.

Yeah Niklas - I saw those pics earlier, there were some interesting shots in that post.
I was hoping to find an adult with that same pattern to see if it remained as vivid but unfortunately the only other I found was the previous deceased one.

Based on my experience primarily with Danish Natrix I would guess that pattern disappears as the snake reaches adulthood.

Nice slow worm