schlafplatz im wohnzimmer
for english, japanese, chinese, spanish or russian subtitles please activate the subtitles. good morning reptile tv community, welcome to a new exciting episode of reptile tv. as we leave, the sun is just rising or has just risen it has rained all night long. i'm on the road with milky, here on my left. we are in dalmatia in croatia near zadar. we are looking for the horned viper, vipera ammodytes. there is a subspecies here, the nose-horned viper. so the whole trip resembles a search for indigenous reptiles. if you remember, i received this request. the vipera ammodytes is very closely related
to our vipera berus, our european adder. we are not very far from home - about 1000 km. today we are going snake-hunting with milky, a local, who knows his way around and hopefully will bring us luck and success. we have reached the spot, where we wanted to search. what worries me a bit is that there are just too many shrubs and trees here. i really don't think this is the place, but we're having a look anyway to see if we are in luck.
let's see... yes, the ground is slightly wet, for the road is already dry but the grass is still damp. let's hope that it rained here last night as well, for we've come from a place about 10-15 km from here and there it rained heavily last night, but i'm afraid that if it rained at all here last night it only rained a little. so, here once more is my companion, milky. say "hello" to reptile tv, milky milky: hello my companion is called milky or yossip. your real name is yossip, isn't it?
his real name is yossip, but milky is his nickname. he comes from the area and is studying veterinary medicine. m.: yes, i'm in my third year. s.: ok, he's been studying veterinary medicine for 3 years, so he must know his way around. s.: you think we'll be lucky today, then? m.: yes, i hope so. s.: ok, let's get started. unfortunately it's always like this on a snake hunt. you start out in high hopes,
you think you just have to get out of the car, turn over a few stones and there's your snake. unfortunately it's not as simple as that. i'm interested to see whether we will find anything at all because as the saying goes, it is like in africa where the farmers say, "look over there" or “look over here, i've seen one." that is real luck, but getting started so easily is always difficult. it seems to me if i were a snake, if i were a snake.... oh, he has already found a small lizard. but they are so fast that it has immediately disappeared.
milky says that there is something in here, but he can't see what it is. of course, by the time we've taken stones from the wall the creature has disappeared. if we haven't found any snakes, we have at least a small praying mantis here, a croatian praying mantis. now the sun is coming out from behind the clouds, let's hope that the sun will also bring out the snakes. totally jinxed, i mean, the terrain is perfect in my opinion, but no animals so far. here we have a nice hollow.
i wish i had an african trapper with me. he could say straight away whether there is something in there or not. we are now moving to another spot and hoping to have more luck elsewhere. along the way i have noticed a few natural stone walls. we’re going to see whether we have more luck in these meadows. this is a perfect cliff wall and if i were a snake, then this is just where i would be. there are about 30 cases a year of snake bites in croatia. there was a report in this week's newspaper of a hunter being bitten. even ammodytes bites
and the bite of an ammodytes is rather more serious and more unpleasant than the bite of a vipera berus. and as far as i know, it is always treated with serum. we are now visiting the reptile exhibition of one of milky's friends perhaps he can help us to find ammodytes in the wild. the organiser of this splendid exhibition is a photographer and took all the pictures himself. the black mamba is one of the highlights of the exhibition and attracts a lot of visitors and of course the royal pythons are not to be missed. the exhibition is well put together and we are in a tourist region here, so the exhibition naturally attracts a lot of visitors.
a lovely diamond python and just here is varanus panoptes, the argus monitor. here is what we are looking for - ammodytes, a fine big specimen. now we must find the organiser, for up to now we have only met his wife. he may be able to give us a few tips for our ammodytes hunt. 5.30 on saturday morning, the moon is still visible and we're making another attempt. last time we discovered that there is not much to find after 6.30 a.m. so we are a good hour earlier than last time for our second attempt. here we are again in the same spot. descriptions from people, who have seen the animals, indicate that
we will find them in vegetation low down on the walls. it is now 6 a.m. and the moon is still visible. in my opinion we are once more half an hour or an hour too late, for the sun is already up and the odds are better at daybreak. here we have one, which has been run over. stefan: can you see what it is? looks like a viper. what a shame! here we have a water hole, and i'd guess that we'll find ammodytes here.
possibly we'll find a different species of viper. the sun is now rising over the mountain. i hope that means the animals will now emerge to lie in the open and warm up in the sun. this wall looks promising, but then again we might be disappointed. at the same time you have to watch where you are going, for you don't want to find one by stepping on it and getting bitten in the foot. the sun is shining from the other side, so we should move to the sunny side of the wall. well, reptil tv community, shall i look here among the individual stones? or shall i go back again to the cliff wall?
i think i'll move slowly towards the cliff wall. there is an excited bird up there and on saboga that was a sign to the trappers that there were boas in the trees. let's see whether croatian birds give the same signals. i can't concentrate on filming and searching, and so i'll put the camera aside for a moment and will focus on the search. here at least a lovely centipede ... off it goes. it looks as though we can give up for today, there's our car already waiting for us... s.: have you found something? m.: yes, a baby.
s.: in fact we have found a small specimen s.: where did you find it? m.: here. s.: not in the wall? the surroundings are really open; only these berry bushes grow here. it is probably a young animal from this year's brood. when it is lying stretched out like that it is easy to recognise. s.: did it try to bite you when you found it? m.: no, it is very calm. i'll show you the surrounding area, down there our car is parked and the area is very open.
up there are the walls, which we have already searched. i thought that if i looked away for a moment, it would disappear, but it’s still there. it's funny, we spent all that time searching in the walls and now we find one here on open ground. there are also stones, but no walls. the question is whether we were searching in the wrong place or whether this one was on its way home. it is another day at half past ten in the morning and on this road we have been seeing tortoises. they try to cross the road and some of them unfortunately are run over. i suppose they must live in the fields on either side of the road.
these are testudo hermanni, the european tortoise and the interesting thing is that we are getting a glimpse of their habitat and we can see what food is available, what the ground is like etc. we want to film the tortoises for a while and then release them again at the same spot. we simply want to get an impression of how the testudo hermanni live in their original habitat. you think you will easily find hundreds of tortoises on the arable land here, but they are very well camouflaged. despite having a team of five people we have not found one. they are hidden somewhere underneath and even with five of us searching we have not found a single animal.
it is too warm at this time of day and the tortoises have already gone into hiding. this is the danger zone, for they come out here and then try to cross the road and that’s dangerous. we are seeing lots of these orb-weaving spiders. i actually know these from south america. i really didn't know that they also live in europe. when i compare it with my hand you can see that they can be quite large. we are breaking off our first day on filming, for it is gradually becoming too hot. we will continue a little longer and hope to be more successful next time. it is now 7 p.m. behind us the sun is slowly setting. i am once more
at the same spot as early this morning. it is now somewhat cooler and we’ll see if i am more successful. here is another typical tortoise path. they make real passageways. here it sinks down and then continues under there. the paths do not run in straight lines, but rather in curves. however, i'm not having any luck in finding tortoises on this path. another problem is that most of the paths lead to the road. and look, here is an underpass leading beneath the road. it is possible that they are bright enough to cross beneath the road? at least some of them, for we have already seen many of them, which have tried
to cross the road. unfortunately we have also seen some tortoises, which have been run over. another failed attempt- so many tracks, but i cannot find any tortoises. i won't give up, another day, another search tomorrow, but probably at a different time of day. a new day, with another attempt at our tortoise hunt, simply by searching. at the time in the morning when they try to cross the road. so we're off to the road to see what we can find. the tracks indicate that this is their main field. it is obvious that they prefer the tall undergrowth to the meadows. the leaves offer a good food supply. when you look underneath you really do see lots of their tracks.
they do seem to have chosen this as their preferred habitat. it provides semi-shade throughout the day and so they are not in the harsh sunlight. here there are fragments of shell and you can see bloodstains; this seems to be the place where most of the tortoises cross and are run over. but it is a shame. when you look at the road you realise how fast the cars are travelling at this point. stefan: here we have found a sleeping place. stella: it continues along here. stefan: the passageways run through under here. my last day in dalmatia and behind me is the death trap for the tortoises. we wanted to try again today to save or to film a few, but we could not find any.
here is a photo of the first tortoise we found, a fine male, which we were able to take across the road in safety. the interesting thing is that we are able to see the passageways and paths and also the habitat, where the tortoises live. in my opinion this shows that here in the undergrowth, where they live, they have a relatively good food supply. it has been interesting, especially for us as terrarium owners, to get a close look at the habitat of the european tortoise. our only ammodytes find was the baby. unfortunately we were not able to find any big ones, even at night. but that is the problem with reptile hunting. so, stay loyal. check out my films and carry tortoises across the road.
stefan, the camera kid, with his camera. melino says he has ... ok, it’s a heap of earth. we're not looking for heaps of earth, we're looking for tortoises. stupidly, i am barefoot and here i am walking on thistles. i'm here on the edge of the road like a total idiot.