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collar patterns and recognition: |
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will Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 No. of posts: 330  View other posts by will |
Posted: 14 Mar 2007 Just a quick thought - has anyone used collar / neck patterns to ID individual grass snakes in the same way that the adder 'V' or 'H' has been used in population studies ? Since colour and pattern of the 'yellow' collar and the black margin vary, could this be used to build up a photo library and to ID snakes subsequently ? Cheers Will |
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GemmaJF Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 No. of posts: 2090  View other posts by GemmaJF |
Posted: 14 Mar 2007 Will, This has come up before on the forums: http://www.herpetofauna.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=943& amp;PN=3 A search in the grass snake forum for 'ID' should reveal a couple of more threads also. I have used the lateral bars for individual ID in the past. Often there are anomalies specific to individual animals - i.e. 5th bar RH side has a 'two scale break' where the black pigment is absent. Also there has been success using the ventral checker patterns, which are generally individual, a small section such as the neck being the only area that needs recording. I would guess that it is possible to ID individual GS using a combination of these techniques. For adder I use head scale patterns and a code for stripe anomalies, this works very well with positive ID of recaptures achieved easily. So this could easily be adapted to lateral shots of GS neck patterns/ventral checker pattern/and æbar codesÆ (excuse the pun) All this of course is so much easier these days with digital cameras. Gemma Fairchild, Independent Ecological Consultant |
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will Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 No. of posts: 330 View other posts by will |
Posted: 14 Mar 2007 Thanks Gemma - like the bar codes pun ! |
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Matt Harris Senior Member Joined: 03 Jun 2003 No. of posts: 196 View other posts by Matt Harris |
Posted: 14 Mar 2007 As above, I have used the ventral markings from the anterior 10 or 15 scales of grassies as a means of recognising individuals for population estimates. Trouble is of course you have to catch the things to do it. Any method which can rely on photographing dorsal markings had got to be a better thing. Gwent Amphibian and Reptile Group (GARG) |
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herpetologic2 Senior Member Joined: 15 Jun 2004 No. of posts: 1369  View other posts by herpetologic2 |
Posted: 14 Mar 2007
I would say at the moment the ventral markings are just what I need to id animals that I catch. I know that Rob has published a paper on facial markings on grass snakes..... so maybe useful though getting a good photo is quite hard.....those grassies are fast!
JC Vice Chair of ARG UK - self employed consultant - visit ARG UK & Alresford Wildlife |
- collar patterns and recognition |