Herping & Wildlife in Greece & Turkey

[Athravan]

Does anyone have any information about what sort of lizards / snakes or other Wildlife we should be looking out for on our holiday?

Animals that are native to Greece and Turkey... we are travelling a lot, so will be island hopping, mainland greece but mostly costly except for athens.. and coastal turkey.

Anything we should keep an eye out for, or any specific places we're most likely to find something to get a few photos of?

[gtm]

You should see Hermans & Marginated Tortoises in Greece and Ibera in Turkey by I expect you knew that already

[HABU]

Herpetofauna of Europe : n greece (may 2004)

Trip to Greece Korfu Kerkyra 2003

Reptiles of Türkiye (Turkey) | TrekNature

[Athravan]

Originally Posted by gtm

You should see Hermans & Marginated Tortoises in Greece and Ibera in Turkey by I expect you knew that already

Hope to see them in the wild but not looking forward to seeing them in the market places though!

[tokay]

ive just got back from turkey on a herping trip
i got pics of loads of Agama the place was overrun with them
also got pics of hermanns and spur thighed torts that were out and about , i also got some pics from there of geckos , blind snakes , whip snakes , terrapins , scorpions and loads of bugs and creepy crawlies

[Trice]

I cant actually remember what Greek Island it was but the beaches were protected, couldnt be on them at night, couldnt dig in the sand due to the turtle eggs etc.
One afternoon, while swimming, turtles swam next to us :O

[tokay]

i went to Patara in Turkey..great place for herping!

[HABU]

sounds like fun! i'll be herping here today if my brother ever gets back...

[Cyberlizard]

If you're already in Greece/Turkey, then it's probably a bit late to recommend books to you...

But for anyone else, there are a few good books:

Collins Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Europe, by E N Arnold (but doesn't cover mainland Turkey)
Reptilien und Amphibien Europas, by Axel Kwet - same area as above, in German but photos are very good
There is also a Turkish herpetofauna guide now out by Dr Ibrahim Baran & Mehmet K Atatur in English, £34.50. A bit pricier than the others but as it's about the only one available, not a bad price!

[Cyberlizard]

Forgot to mention that there is also a new guide to Greek herpetofauna just published in the Chimaira range. It's a bit expensive at £48 (or thereabout) but probably quite detailed.

Re the Greek islands, an article in Reptilian issue 3:7 gives a guide to the herpetofauna known at the time (about 1997?) for each island.

Finally you can use the TIGR database on the Net to do a search for each country, but it will be a bit general so you'd have to then look at each result to see if it informed you of the island/region/district.