Hi,
I’ve been in the Netherlands since July 1. I want to move back to Texas next year, and just in case that actually happens, I want to have seen every Dutch herp by next summer, which is far from difficult. I only have a few species left to see, and this post summarizes my finds since moving here.
After moving from a great location for herps, I thought it was fitting to see this first herp, both in what it is and the condition it’s in.
Bufo bufo bufo (A very cool name, though.)
They do have measures to protect native (herpeto)fauna.
Drive Slow / Toad Migration.
My parents got a temporary apartment in Scheveningen, a Jersey Shore-like coastal town.
The coastal dunes form one of the most continuous, relatively natural areas in the whole country. It forms one of strongholds for native species like the Natterjack (Bufo calamita) and the Sand Lizard (Lacerta agilis). They are both very common here.
Bufo calamita
They are highly variable and funny to watch, because they prefer running over hopping.
They are associated with sandy soils and right after dusk it’s not uncommon to see them covered with sand when they just leave their daytime refugia.
Here is one found side by side with the only other (native) toad, the common toad.
I thought this one eyed individual was cool as well.
Somebody who clearly has gotten much more bored of the native herpetofauna than I am has made it his/her mission to introduce as many species as possible. Midwife Toads (Alytes obstetricans), which I haven’t observed here yet, and Tree Frogs (Hyla arborea) are now both found in the dunes.
I have only caught one Tree Frog, although on warm nights they can be heard calling from many different ponds.
Hyla arborea
Crested Newts are also found in the dunes, although there is some discussion about whether it’s the native species (Triturus cristatus) or an invasive, namely the Balkan (Southern) Crested Newt (T. karelinii). Confusion arises with the odd larvae and the adults with orange chins, characteristic of T. karelinii, but both species are highly variable.
Triturus sp.
Weird one.
Scenery.
The only Sand Lizard I photographed was a juvenile.
Lacerta agilis
I went looking for adders up north with a friend and we found two, of which one got away. This yearling female was basking next to a pond.
Vipera berus
Drosera intermedia
I had some fun with a handful of Smooth Newts from the dunes while experimenting with some different techniques.
Lissotriton vulgaris
Old one.
Younger one.
And probably my favorite shot of the bunch, a very young one with the foot of an adult for size comparison.
A few weeks ago I wanted to find a Fire Salamander. They are found in only two natural populations in the country, although I’ve set my sights on trying to discover another one in a different part of the country. Apparently these guys are doing terribly. Since 2010 they’ve been finding a good number of dead individuals in the forest, without any clear signs of death. They’ve been tested for common amphibian diseases for which they all tested negative, which indicates something new is going on. Normally, you can find huge numbers of these guys during the right conditions (see end of this post), but in 2012, they’ve only found ~20 adults. Increased monitoring effort still yields very few results.
Under the first few logs, I hit jackpot with a gorgeous lifer.
Ichtyosaura alpestris
Another one from the same log.
20 seconds later I had a juvenile Fire Salamander.
Salamandra salamandra terrestris
Ten minutes later I saw this under a log.
Simply beautiful. I believe this is an adult male.
Five salamanders were found that day, all of them in the very southern part of the forest. I’m not sure if there’s a correlation, but I thought it was odd a few hours were spent searching (IMO) better habitat without results.
The next day I gave a presentation about salamanders of the Smoky Mountains for the Dutch salamander association, and after that went out to try to find the last Dutch salamander I needed to see, the Palmate Newt (Lissotriton helveticus). I found two newts, though I’m not sure if it’s L. helveticus or the ubiquitous L. vulgaris. Both are found in the area.
On the way back I flipped some stuff around a house and quickly turned up four (this time real) Crested Newts.
Triturus cristatus
They’re tricky to get good pictures of.
I wasn’t finding much else anymore, so I decided to use the time before the next bus came to photograph a common frog.
Rana temporaria
The next day, university started. On the first day I went out to find a lifer I had embarrassingly enough not found yet. I found three, of which only two were photographed (the third one was digesting a meal).
Natrix natrix
A few days after that, I went looking for the last snake I had also not found in the Netherlands yet. I like this spot a lot, even though it’s about the size of a postage stamp.
A few Sand Lizards were seen, and finally one Smooth Snake, only a few days old. Regrettably, no snakes from the same litter were found in the vicinity.
Coronella austriaca
A weekend or two after this I traveled for four hours by public transport (I get free transport on weekends because I attend a university) to visit one of three-ish, well known localities of the Yellow-bellied Toad (Bombina variegata). I knew it was popular, but some of the herper damage I’ve seen here was unprecedented.
This was absurd. What’s ironic about it is that Bombina require no rock flipping to be found!
Either these people are ignorant and don’t realize the implications of not putting rocks back correctly, or they’re careless douchebags who don’t care to preserve the habitat as best they can. I talked to a caretaker of the land and the problem is well known and widespread (I’ve actually seen it in many areas where I’ve herped here, much more than in the US). I suggested they put up a sign that it’s not allowed to flip rocks, but if one does do it, to at least put the rocks back exactly the way they found them.
Anyway, I found lots of Bombina, mostly juveniles. My one and only Alytes obstetricans was found here too, but I didn’t get the chance to photograph it. Yellow-bellied Toads like shallow bodies of water and breed in anything from ponds to tire tracks to rain puddles. Some time ago, these anurans could be found in virtually any body of water in this area. I’m not exactly sure what has caused the severe decline, since they can do with such (seemingly) crappy breeding water.
Habitat for Bombina variagata and Alytes obstetricans.
Bombina variegata
Some Viviparous Lizards were active in the rockier areas as well.
Zootoca vivipara
After two hours I finally found an adult Yellow-bellied Toad. Most adults had long left the breeding waters.
Their heart-shaped pupils are incredible.
After another hour of busses, I visited the most northwestern population of Wall Lizards (Podarcis muralis) anywhere. These lizards are found in one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands (it got it’s city rights 1204, but was settled 500 BC) and there it only occurs on the remnants of the city walls (and now it’s also expanding to train station platforms...). Recent restoration has made some of the city walls less favorable to the lizards, but they seem to be doing great in other spots. My hypothesis is that these animals spread their distribution by following the expansion of people and from there evolved to live on rock walls as opposed to cliffs, as there are no natural rock walls in the Netherlands.
Podarcis muralis
The weather got colder and I started birding a little more. Not much to show for it yet, and I have (thus far) refused to twitch any bird.
Larus argentatus
Arenaria interpres
This has been my primary birding location as I’m particularly interested in pelagic birds. Shitty winds and little effort haven’t yielded anything noteworthy.
A few hundred meters from my place is a shed with a Little Owl living in it, which is cool. I think he’s starting to recognize the guy that keeps sneaking up on him to take a picture.
The weather is getting cold and fall is well underway. One of the last warm days in October, the 11th, yielded this lonely snake after a few hours work.
Coronella austriaca
After seeing a killer post from Bert Vandebosch, I realized I had to go see some of the Belgian populations of Fire Salamanders. (If salamanders aren’t your thing or you don’t like to see tons of pictures of the same species, you should probably close this page right now. Just a heads up. )Bert and I planned a night and I headed over there. We searched from 22:00 to 1:00 and turned up 74+ salamanders, the majority of which were males. All (except for one) of these photos are in situ.
Salamandra salamandra terrestris
Preggers female.
Yes, they pose themselves like this.
Another gravid female.
The females really don’t look flattering.
And now, the reason I wanted to visit Bert in the first place: a weird color variation, probably the coolest salamander I have ever seen.
The evil European, habitat disrupting, animal poaching, locality sharing, flipping spot destroying, amphibian dehydrating, road killing, lizard dismembering Jeroen Speybroeck also has some weird orange Salamandra in his neck of the woods, so the next weekend I headed over to a different part of Belgium. Like I said, the salamanders just keep coming.
This habitat is a little different than Bert’s forest. It’s a very old beech forest with little undergrowth, and a lot of salamanders were characteristically found in between the beech roots.
A highly patterned one.
An average one. The subspecies terrestris is characterized by the yellow blotches forming two lines down the back.
An awesome one.
A climbing one.
A lifer one. The pond this Palmate Newt came from is used by all five native species of salamander, a feat (probably) not accomplished by any pond in the Netherlands.
Lissotriton helveticus
A dead one.
A gravid one.
This mushroom reminded me of my blossoming herping career with Scott Wahlberg.
And finally, an orange one!
Thanks for looking,
Matthijs Hollanders
The Netherlands: July - October
Moderator: Scott Waters
- MHollanders
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Re: The Netherlands: July - October
Now that was a nice post. I'm glad that you got into some worthwhile Caudates over there. VERY glad!
Re: The Netherlands: July - October
Fantastic Post!!!! I love seeing salamandra and all the great variations they come in.
Dave S.
Dave S.
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Re: The Netherlands: July - October
Very nice The lack of diversity is made up in neon yellow and black
- Martti Niskanen
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Re: The Netherlands: July - October
A great Euro-post.
Re: The Netherlands: July - October
great stuff!
Re: The Netherlands: July - October
That high yellow salamander is incredible!