Quartet of Cypriot Lizards

Despite hours of searching in the favourite haunts of snakes, I saw not one serpent in my sixteen days in Cyprus. Lizards were a-plenty, however, but making up four species:

Agama
Laudakia stellio cypriaca (Daan, 1967)
Agamidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata


adult, at Alagadi (N35°19.923 E33°28.692), April 2009


adult, at Bellapais Abbey (N35°18.393 E33°21.359), April 2009


juvenile, at Bellapais Abbey, October 2008

Looking somewhat like a bearded dragon (Pogona spp.), a popular pet, the (starred) agama is found in some Greek Islands of the Aegean Sea, Cyprus, Turkey, northern Egypt and the Near East as far as Iraq. They are the largest lizards to be found on Cyprus, the individual in the first photo was fully grown, at over 30 cm in length. Males and females are hard to tell apart, but juveniles are more distinctly patterned compared to the adults.

Schreiber’s fringe-toed lizard
Acanthodactylus schreiberi schreiberi (Boulenger, 1878)
Lacertidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata


adult, at Gönyeli (N35°14.069 E33°18.101), April 2009


juvenile, at Alagadi, April 2009

Fringe-toed lizards are a group of sand-loving reptiles from parts of Europe and north Africa; the fringe that gives them their vernacular name evidently helps them scuttle on hot, loose sands. I observed this species in a few sandy locations such as Turtle Beach at Alagadi, and sand dunes near the lake at Gönyeli. Juveniles are easy to identify, as among the Cypriot lizards, only they can be as brightly-marked, with longitudinal black and white stripes, and even a red tail. The red coloration and stripes fade and turn to spots as the lizard matures, as can be seen in the first photo. The species is not endemic to Cyprus, but is also found in Turkey and the Near East.

Troodos lizard
Phoenicolacerta troodica (Werner, 1936)
Lacertidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata


adult female, at Bellapais Abbey, possibly gravid with eggs


adult male, at Kyrenia, (N35°20.570 E33°15.251)


adult male and female, at Kyrenia

Since blogging about this species the last time I went to Cyprus, I have seen many more individuals of the endemic Troodos lizard in many more locations than I had previously. Note the beautifully coloured male with his blue flank spots, and the red-backed female who definitely looks gravid/pregnant (or should that be eggnant?)



Snake-eyed lizard
Ophisops elegans elegans Ménétries, 1832
Lacertidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata
Geçitköy (N35°20 E33°04)
April 2009

It wasn’t until I arrived back home that I realised that I had seen several individuals of this species, as I thought they were Acanthodactylus schreiberi. They can be told by their rather snake-like face and heavily-keeled scales. This individual was posing nicely on a rock by the side of the road as we approached the reservoir, more on which to follow in a later post.

Cyprus Update II

Yesterday I travelled to a few wild places to search for Cypriot wildlife. The first destination was the village of Geçitköy, set inland from the Mediterranean Sea amongst the foothills of the Kyrenia Mountains. The village itself is small and like many others. I saw a small pond as we entered the city, and decided to stop to look for reptiles, amphibians and birds. As I walked to the pond with my mum (a very useful translator in these parts!), a local stopped us and asked what we were doing. Mum explained on my behalf that I was there to find animals and wild flowers to photograph. The lady then mentioned that she keeps and looks after injured animals, and invited us to take a look. She first of all showed me an injured buzzard (Buteo buteo) that was found locally and given to her, as she is renowned in the village for fostering injured animals. The buzzard looked very healthy to me and was flapping about in its cage. I got some wonderful shots of it, stay tuned for those. Also she keeps chickens and guineafowl in the next aviary. As I was watching them, she went into the aviary and took out a very small chick, not more than a day old I would have thought. The lady also kept quails, chukars (Alectoris chukar, a kind of partridge), ducks, cockatiels, hamsters, spur-thighed tortoises (Testudo graeca) and dogs. She refused to take any money as a donation; she said she does this purely for her love of the animals.

I travelled to Geçitköy to visit a large manmade reservoir which attracts much wildlife during times of drought. The lake is beautiful at this time of year, and it is easy to walk the 5 km circumference. I saw several frogs (not the marsh frogs, but I will try to ID them later), and heard two types of frog, these and another type I tended to hear coming from bushes, so I think it is a tree frog. I also travelled to the very northwest of the island.

Cyprus Update

Well, I have some time before breakfast on my third day in North Cyprus to update my beloved blog. No pictures though, haven’t been able to upload any yet.

Yesterday I had a mini-adventure. I had planned to go to Bellapais Abbey to search for the three species of lizards I had seen there in October: common, or starred, agama (Laudakia stellio); Schreiber’s fringe-toed lizard (Acanthodactylus schreibersi); and the endemic Troodos lizard (Phoenicolacerta troodica). The abbey is some five miles from where I am staying in the coastal town of Kyrenia (Turkish name: Girne). It dates to the 13th century, and is still relatively complete, with many of the rooms still almost intact.

I began to search for the lizards, and maybe even snakes, as soon as I got there, but was beginning to become disillusioned; what had happened in the intervening six months since my last visit to the abbey to make the lizards disappear? After about half an hour of vigorous observations, I finally managed to see and photograph a single female Troodos lizard basking in the sun on a low wall. No males, no agamas, no snakes either. Since it is breeding season, I expected to see many times more than in October, with the male Troodos lizards displaying and defending their territories against other males… they turn bright blue-green at this time of year. No males sighted at Bellapais this time. Something I realized whilst there was that the weather was significantly windy and not very hot. Perhaps the reptiles were put off basking for fear of falling off their sunloungers and being eaten by the feral cats and dogs that roam the place looking for morsels of food.

In slight disillusion, I decided to try and find a lake I had heard about and had seen on Google Earth. The lake is located north of the village (town?) of Gönyeli. After asking locals where the “reservoir” is (this is what I was led to believe it was known as), we ended up at a large water barrel, not what I had in mind. At least it was high up; the vantage point gave me a clear view of the azure-blue lake not far in the distance. The road is dirt track and unpaved; my dad is driving a car without 4-wheel drive, and is getting stuck in pot-holes every couple of seconds. Needless to say, with perseverance we managed to get near enough to the edge of the lake to park the car and walk down the steep slope towards the lake margin.

The margins of the lake are what I would call polluted. Bottles, cans, and all other sorts of man-made debris litter the side, and the outer metre or so of the lake was covered in gloopy, thick algae, a sign of increased nutrients in the water from excessive nitrate input. I was on the lookout for marsh frogs (Pelophylax ridibundus) and stripe-necked terrapins (Mauremys rivulata), but found none. The lake is large (I will get an area estimate next time I check Google Earth) with a deep area in the centre which must persevere throughout severe drought periods in the Cypriot summer.

I did see plenty of swallows (Hirundo rustica) around the lake, and in the village at Bellapais. Other small birds were visible, but were probably house sparrows (Passer domesticus). I think coots (Fulica atra) were present in the deeper reaches of the pond. I decided to navigate my way around about a quarter of the perimeter the pond to appreciate the stunning vista and look for wildlife. Large red dragonflies hovered about the place, but none stayed still enough in the wind to allow me to take a photograph. I pushed through tall reeds and managed to avoid putting my foot in the algal goo. After a short walk to a nice spit where I could take photos, I returned to the car, seeing several more Troodos lizards and possibly some fringe-toed lizards, but they were so fast I don’t think I photographed any.

Today I’m hoping to visit the northwestern part of the island, to an isolated village with reservoir, and to the cape at the tip, known variously as Cape Kormakitis in Greek, or Korusan in Turkish. I will report on that shortly, hopefully, so stay tuned!

Rogue Taxidermy

I mentioned in the previous post that Guzelyurt Museum of Nature and Archaeology is my least favourite museum of all that I have been to. I admire the fact that northern Cyprus has a museum dedicated to its natural and historical treasures, but I can’t help but feel a little disheartened by the way the specimens look, and the fact that many are misidentified.

Take the following pair of photographs for example: both are of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), the well known fox from most of the Northern Hemisphere and Australia as well.






One is a specimen from Manchester Museum, and the other from Guzelyurt Museum. The former is a beautifully presented, almost life-like, image of the fox in a relaxed posture with pristine coat and healthy look. The latter, well, what can I say? My mum was giggling when she saw the poor thing in the museum, and my sister Mini commented on the photo on Facebook, saying the thing would give her nightmares. If the specimen was meant to give the visitor an idea of what a living fox looks like, I think Guzelyurt’s atrocities (there were more than one!) would not get that point across.

Many of the scientific names were incorrect: the names for the lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) and the green sandpiper (Tringa ochropus) were swapped around, for example, two species of very similar eagle were swapped round, and the name on the white pelican’s tag was not Pelecanus onocrotalus, the species native to Europe, but P. erythrorhynchus, the American white pelican. The curator must have fancifully thought the white goose in their collection was a rare snow goose (Anser caerulescens), and not the more bog-standard, every-day domestic goose (A. anser). These mistakes may seem trivial, but for those who don’t know what they are looking at, it can mean being led to believe something which is wrong. I don’t know whether the names on many of the stuffed fishes were correct, as I am not skilled in identifying Mediterranean marine fishes, so I put my faith in the Museum’s label for them, as well as the numerous butterflies and other insects pinned in frames.

I do wonder whether I ought to point these errors out to the Museum, or whether they wouldn’t take any notice, and retort that they don’t get many visitors anyway, and those that do walk round in 20 seconds and go upstairs to the much better presented and more complete archaeology section. My parents are going back to Cyprus in a few days, what do you think readers, should I give them a letter to hand to the curator? They don’t appear to have a website and I don’t have their address either.


Something else to give you nightmares:








The best specimens in Guzelyurt Museum were the two-headed and two-bodied lamb, the latter of which I nicknamed "Spider lamb", as it does have eight legs. I don't know how common these deformities are in Cyprus, but if they are rare, surely the Museum should advertise and publicise more.

By the way, the title for this post, “Rogue Taxidermy” comes from the term applied to the taxidermy of mythical creatures or made up animals, such as sewing bits of eagles and lions together to create a griffin! I used the term to refer to Guzelyurt’s practice of the art.

Troodos Lizard

Troodos lizard
Phoenicolacerta troodica (Werner, 1936)
Lacertidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata
Bellapais Abbey, near Kyrenia, North Cyprus
October 2008

Like the Cyprus pied wheatear featured not long ago, the Troodos lizard is an endemic species to Cyprus. It was formerly considered (and still is, by some herpetologists) to be merely a subspecies of the Lebanon lizard (P. laevis). The genus Phoenicolacerta was only recently (2007) separated from the now-divorced Lacerta, which used to contain the common lizard amongst other European species. 

I am not sure whether the pictured animals are males or females, but there does appear to be a difference between the red-backed forms and those with red on their sides. In the breeding season, it is easier to tell the sexes apart, as the males turn green with blue heads, while the females are duller.

P. troodica is also the smallest of the four types of lizard I saw on the island, the only other one of comparable size I saw was the ubiquitous Schreiber’s fringe-toed lizard (Acanthodactylus schreiberi) which will get its own feature here shortly! The agama (Laudakia stellio) is usually larger, although the juveniles were commonly the same size as P. troodica and A. schreiberi, but are very different looking, with toad-like heads and diamond patterns on the back. I don’t think anybody could confuse any of these lizards with the chameleon though!

European Chameleon

European chameleon
Chamaeleo chamaeleon Linnaeus, 1758
Chamaeleonidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata
near Famagusta, North Cyprus
October 2008 

Chameleons are (said very scientifically) a cool bunch of animals. They are an instantly recognisable group of lizards: they are most well known for their ability to change colour at will, and their loopy eyes that can face any direction independently of each other. They are also known for their super-elastic tongue and unusual grasping feet and curly prehensile tail. 

The hotspot for chameleon diversity is Madagascar, with about 70 species including the world’s smallest and the world’s largest. Elsewhere they are found in Africa, southern Europe and Asia. The European (or common) chameleon pictured is found in Greece, some Greek islands, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, North Africa and the Middle East as far as Iran, and is often split into four subspecies: the Cyprus population would belong to C. c. recticrista. 

Cyprus Pied Wheatear

Long time no blog! In celebration of my voyage to Northern Cyprus earlier this month, I will be blogging on a variety of the natural wonders of that country. Today’s post will be on the Cyprus pied wheatear (Oenanthe cypriaca).

Cyprus pied wheatear
Oenanthe cypriaca (Horneyer, 1884)
Muscicapidae; Passeriformes; Aves; Chordata
Kyrenia, North Cyprus
October 2008 

The Cyprus pied wheatear is a small bird related to the robins and chats such as stonechats and whinchats. It is one of only two so-called breeding endemic species of bird in Cyprus. This means that they spend the summer months (up to October it seems) only in Cyprus. They migrate to Sudan to spend the winter. The other bird is the Cyprus warbler (Sylvia melanothorax), which I unfortunately didn’t see.

This bird is a female, you can see a dusky cap with white border (more white in the male), and buff-rufous underparts which are less extensive in males.