Homeward bound!

It is now time to leave Corfu and in 3 hours I will be on the plane back to England.  Had a relaxing day on the beach and a lovely Mediteranean lunch. I must admit that I will miss the green trees against blue skies and white sand against blue water, but spending time on the beach has made me think how many people must come to Corfu and never go anywhere apart from it. They really don’t know what they are missing. In just 7 days I have seen 21 different reptiles and amphibians, and this is the worst time of year to see anything. The places visited and the people met have been wonderful too, such a great island. One thing that sticks out in my mind has been seeing a reptile I knew full well I would see, a Greek  Tortoise. I had one or two when I was a kid, but to see them in the wild, roaming the dunes, was very special. To see such wonderful creatures living where they really belong is something that far outways seeing anything in captivity.

As I leave, I feel privilaged to have experienced a different side of the Island than most holidaymakers ever will and also to have had a taste of the wildlife diversity that inspired one of my heroes, Gerald Durrell. Seeing so many herps during my visit would not have been possible without the help of Matt Wilson, and for him sharing his knowledge, herpetological skills, and enthusiasm, I am very grateful. Cheers Matt.

Para-Dice snakes!

I just can’t believe how beautiful Corfu is – it really is a Zoologist’s paradise. Today I went with Matt to the beautiful Ropa Valley in Central Corfu and we searched for herps along a little river that flows through the centre. It’s hard to explain just how diverse the areas we are going to are, particularly for this time of year when its so hot. The river’s edge was lush with green vegetation and thick with the most amazing insects and birdlife. Walking ankle deep through wild lavender, surrounded by large colourful dragonflies, we saw lots of fabulous creatures.

The river contained many turtles which quickly dived for cover. They soon realised we were no threat  – and came our to check us out! We also saw two species of snake, including grass snakes and the rarer Dice snake. Marsh frogs sat calling and sunbathing at the water’s surface, it was magical to just sit there and witness it all…

Nice!

Although we searched and searched the hot rocky habitat of Mount Pandokrator on our trip to the highlands of Corfu, we didn’t find a single Horned Viper. Apparently this is about the worst months to be searching for them here because its just too hot. April, May and October is the best time when the weather is definately more suitable for both man and beast! We left the mountain top disappointed. Later in the day however, our luck changed drastically. Walking through a lovely shady olive grove nearer to our base we disturbed a large Montpellier snake that was out hunting green lizards. Old olive trees (pictured) make for great reptile habitat as they have holes and crevices in which they can easily hide. Well, as soon as the snake saw us he was off. and at what a speed!!! I honestly don’t think I have ever seen a snake move faster! These snakes actively search prey by sight and have amazing eyesight – we were lucky to even get so close. An amazing snake – and one of Matt’s favourites, it made his day.   Before leaving the area, as the sun was setting and the mosquitoes started to bite, we found an ancient stone wall near an old overgrown chapel. A big flat stone nearby looked perfect. It’s funny but herper’s just get good vibes about the size flatness and position of such stones. Sounds nerdy, but it’s so true, you just know something good is waiting to be discovered beneath. We looked at each other and lifted the stone….

A Blind Snake. what can I say. So rare. sooo elusive, never found at this time of year, if at all in Corfu! Nice find. Nice day. How I dislike the word ‘Nice’ – Bloody fantastic day! to be polite!

Legless lizards in Corfu!

At the moment I am on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu. The weather is scorchio and the herp hunting fantastic! It’s so cool to be on the island that I  read about when I was little, where Gerald Durrell wrote his famous amateur naturalist books which inspired me so much from an early age. This is one of the greenest of the Greek Islands and its absolutely stunning. Over the past couple of days I have spend many hours with my friend Matt Wilson walking through shady scented olive groves, coastal marshlands and beautiful sundrenched beachy headlands in search of some of the islands’ rarest reptiles and amphibians. In between catching a bit of sun, its been a thrill a minute finding what we have seen. Yesterday was a great day. After spending the day on the beach and fine lunch in Corfu Town, we set out to look for the largest legless lizard in the world. After walking the dunes near Lake Korrision as the sun was setting we came across greek tortoises roaming the sand and entered a scrub area where hundreds of really large spiders were making their webs overhead. I followed Matt, who new the area well from his previous visits, to the centre of the habitat for this very unusual lizard species. Then we spotted one dead ahead  – Man these things can really move, and Matt dived into the scrub after it faster than David James.  Got it! a small adult specimen moving with such power and force we first thought it was a large snake! These wonderful  creatures are amazing to see close up, like something almost prehistoric. Apparently they can live up to about 60 years and can grow to a metre in length, as thick as a man’s arm. Although they look a bit on the scary side, they have lovely temperament and never try to bite. Returning back to where we are staying in jubilation (and with sunburn) we later discovered some stunning green tree frogs (pictured) calling loudly across from the apartment. What a day it was, a celebratory drink or three was definately called for! Tomorrow we head North to Pandokrator Mountain to search for venomous Horned Vipers. Dont think David James will be pouncing so fast if we come across any though!

School Visits!

I would just like to say a really big thank you to the following schools who visited the Manchester Museum over the past couple of months. All the schools listed below had special sessions with the live animals and I have to say that it has been a real pleasure to teach such great kids. THANK YOU!! 

 

Cribden House School, Rawtenstall

Moston Lane School, Manchester

Cavendish Road Primary School, Manchester

Peel Hall School, Worsley, Manchester

Victoria Park School, Stretford

Oswold Road School, Chorlton

Aysnley School, Stoke on Trent

St Edwards School, Rochdale

St Francis School,  Co. Laois, Eire

St Cuthbert’s School, Withington

Meanwood Primary School, Rochdale

Knutsford High School, Manchester

Valley School, Bramhall  

Bretherton School, Lancashire

Grange School, Oldham

St Mary’s Primary School, Droylsden

All Saints Primary School, Gorton

I really hope all the schools had a very enjoyable trip, and if you were part of one of these visits, please feel free to comment below as I would love to know how your trip went.

Remembering the Lemur Leaf Frog!

A company in the USA, called S.O.S,  now makes a fun and very informative memory game that helps kids to discover some fascinating facts about a wide variety of the world’s most endangered animals. The new version will even to feature the Lemur Leaf Frog, Hylomantis lemur, from Costa Rica! The game is a great educational tool and hopefully in the future we may stock the game in our Museum shop as part of our Sustainable Planet initiative. 

Click below to find out  more about the game and, if you follow the Lemur Leaf Frog link on the SOS site, you can watch  a past video clip of lemur leaf frogs at the Manchester Museum -  it just jogged some nice memories! 

The memory game and video clip of leaf frogs at The Manchester Museum: http://www.sostogether.com/m_13.asp 

Lemur leaf frogs where they belong: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7597110.stm

Lemur Leaf Frog Conservation Project: http://www.costaricaexpedition.co.uk/Lemur%20Conservation%20Project.htm

Fish to Frogs!

 

Ron Gagliardo and I looking into the worlds largest aquarium! probably..

Well, I’m just about over my jetlag after flying back to Manchester, but what a wonderful visit to America it was. It was such a pleasure to meet everyone at Atlanta Zoo and also the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, who made me very welcome. My talk  seemed to be very well received and I even got to go behind the scenes and meet people at the Georgia Aquarium, which was such an amazing place. Here they have the largest Aquarium in the world - holding approx 6.3 million gallons of saltwater!  

Back to Manchester, and to water of a different kind ,  where we had a great ‘Big Saturday’ at the Museum last weekend. It was so nice to see so many interested people attend the session, and great to meet those who came especially for the frog talk. Thanks a million. I would also like to say a quick thanks to the many teachers who came to the learning team’s talk at the Museum yesterday. I hope you enjoyed your visit as much as I enjoyed meeting you all!  

 Manchester Museum: Video and pics from Go Green Big Saturday on the Enquire blog http://is.gd/UQjH:

Atlanta Zoo: http://www.zooatlanta.org/

Atlanta Botanical Gardens: http://www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org/home.do

Georgia Aquarium: http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

Hunting salamanders in Atlanta!

Yesterday I had the most amazing day looking for salamanders a couple of hours North of Atlanta in the mountains with my friend Ron Gagliardo and also Robert Hill of ABG, it was wonderful. We set off to look for a very rare species that only occurs in the limestone rock crevices of Pigeon Mountain. The weather’s been really hot and dry since I arrived in Atlanta, which has been great for me, but not so great for finding amphibians. We first searched the streams at the foot of the mountain and to my surprise found several species within a matter of minutes. These creatures are nothing like the newts you find under stones back in England, these move as fast as a lizard and can be really hard to catch as they dive for cover in fast-flowing streams. Anyway, we found some dusky, long-tailed, and even red salamanders living under stones right by the stream, superb. These were swabbed for chytrid by Robert, who commits lots of his own time to important related conservation fieldwork.

 

Robert Hill taking chytrid swab

We then went up near the top of the mountain, where sheer rock faces dominate, to search the damp crevices for the Pigeon Mountain species that is so elusive. After some searching, Robert’s torch picked out a tiny slimy tail, but there was just no chance of getting a better view. Then we saw another specimen just within reach! After photographing the black and gold little creature we popped him back and headed for the cool cave system. We entered with torches and scanned the walls. Literally within a minute of entering, cave salamanders were everywhere, beautiful orange and black spotted ones, totally unconcerned with our presence. It was amazing!

My sincere thanks go to Ron and Robert for allowing me the experience, cheers Guys! Check out the tab at the top entitled “Salamanders” for a few more photos from yesterday. 

Manchester frogs go to USA!

Thanks to Ron Gagliardo (AmphibianArk) and Atlanta Zoo, this weekend I will be taking several Splendid Leaf Frogs, Cruziohyla calcarifer, with me to America. They are part of an international conservation initiative that was started many years ago.  The breeding programme was first started in Manchester in 2000 with the aim of establishing an ‘Ark’ for the species. Over the years breeding has gone well and the bloodlines  have been carefully managed at The Manchester Museum, who deserve all credit for supporting their care. This species only lays very few eggs, but through experience we have been gaining a really good idea of how to raise and maintain these frogs in the best possible conditions. Keeping the species has also facilitated much research, including work for my own Master Degree and also several excellent Manchester student projects. The research has helped us learn much about this wonderful species, from providing a unique perspective into territoriality, communication and dietary requirements, to enabling a thorough comparison with other closely related species (to see an example of a supervised student project on a calcarifer/craspedopus comparison click here: calcarifer eye morphology. Also, the unusual phenomenon of ‘leg-waving’ in phyllomedusines was first witnessed with the captive specimens: http://frogblogmanchester.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/tree-frog-leg-waving/                              

Frogs bred at the museum are now being distributed to world zoo’s that have the necessary skills to maintain them in optimum conditions; Some have already been provided to Bristol and Chester Zoo in England. I must admit that the conservation of these particular frogs is so close to my heart, and so am extremely pleased that they are going to others who fully appreciate how very special they are. Perhaps more importantly, it’s good to know that the species is now doing so well in the wild, thanks to the likes of Brian Kubicki at the CRARC in Costa Rica.

Video clip of the frogs in the News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksub3nvEqa8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fmy%5Fvideos%5Fedit&feature=player_embedded

Video clip of the frogs in the Wild: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7597118.stm)

Talk Dates

Apart from giving talks for under 12’s in the Museum, over the forthcoming months I am also very pleased to be giving several other presentations. Its always a pleasure for me to talk on my favourite subject - but be warned that its hard to stop me once I start! During some of the talks I will be highlighting the plight of the worlds amphibians and talking from a personal perspective about the conservation of some of the rarest and most fragile species. Most of  the talks will be between 40 minutes to an hour in length and will focus mainly on my work, conserving endangered frogs, and the importance of education and research. If you have the opportunity to come along then it would be great to meet you. At some events I will have some of the live frogs in question with me, but at all of them I will be making plenty of time for a chat afterwards.  The dates for the talks so far are as follows:   

3rd June –  Altlanta Zoo, GA, USA . 12 noon. For further info contact: ron@amphibianark.org

6th June – Manchester Museum, UK,  Go green! (For over 12yr old) 2pm in the Kanaris Theatre: http://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/whatson/june/

9th June – Manchester Museum, UK, (For Science Teachers) also see: http://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/learning/

12th June – Manchester University, UK, Smith Building 6pm (For students, staff and public over 12 years old) Contact richard.preziosi@manchester.ac.uk

23rd June – Manchester Museum, UK, (For secondary students) http://learningmanchester.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/meet-the-scientist-with-his-frogs-and-reptiles/

15th July – Manchester Museum, UK, (For secondary students) see above for details.

16th July – Manchester Museum, UK, (For secondary students) see above for details.

8th August – Manchester Museum, UK,  Nature Discovery Day session (For over 12 years olds) Details to follow.

31st August – SciBar, Didsbury, Manchester, UK. 6.30pm http://www.scibar.info/