RAUK - Archived Forum - Posts by highlander:

There are no populations of Grass Snakes in Scotland, being oviparious the tempreature never gets high enough for the eggs to be incubated correctly and be able to hatch.

Your local library should have copies of the IUCN Red & Green Books of conservation, every local authority is responsible for recording which species occur in their district.

Red book is for all endangered species listed in your area and in the UK, Green for stable species in your area and in the UK.

These include all introduced species.

If your library does not have a copy try your local council.

There has been no verification of Grass Snakes to occur Scotland, always rumours though, often people mistake slow worms for grass snakes, as people expect lizards to have legs.

I am from Hamilton, and am quite lucky, that in my surrounding area we have the viparious lizard, reasonable population of slow worms, plenty of frogs, toads, newts and a few populations of great crested newts.

There is a small adder population in Erskine, in which I am hoping to do some work on, as like most of you have yet too see an adder in scotland.

There are no grass snakes on Mull, despite what a single website claims, Mull has been intensively studied by Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen universities, mainly for birds and small mammals, adders and common lizards were recorded, as were slow worms but no grass snakes. Again I suspect the grass snake has been misidentified, as remember most people think the black adder is entirely black (melanistic), therefore someone who did not know any better could quite easily misidentify the species.

Again to check, get a hold of the IUCN data for mull, I can ensure you grass snakes do not occur on Mull.

Here is a list of species of reptile found in Scandanavia : I have put an X to the ones that are  viparious.

Coronella austricata (x)

Natrix natrix

Goniurosaurus lichtenfelderi

Lacerta agilis

Lacerta vivipara (x)

Dermochelys coriacea

Vipera berus (x)

Bearing in mind Scandanavia has a greater range of altitudes than Scotland, i.e. the Norweigan Fords are much warmer than our cool summers.

The Scandanavian reptiles which occur at the same latitude as Scotland are :

Viper berus and Lacerta vivipara, there are no oviparious reptiles present in Scandanavia at the same latitude as Scotland.

Lacerta agilis the sand lizard has also not been recorded in Scotland, and is also under severe threat as we all know.

I do not doubt however that it may be possible for Grass snakes to survive in Dumfries, as the tempreatures are similar to those of the Lake District. However the Northern Uplands which are North of Cumbria, and the Lead hills before Dumfries (heading southwards) are two barriers which prevent the spread of the grass snake into Scotland, and again there are no oviparious recorded in Scotland, again problems with not only tempreature for egg incubation, but also the amount of rainfall we get, which would certainly destroy the eggs if the cold did not.

Also bear in mind it takes approximately 10 weeks for Grass Snake eggs to hatch, so what are the chances of us up here getting the same tempreatures as Cumbria down south to allow the snakes to hatch ? One month similar tempreature is not adequate enough for the grass snake eggs to hatch up here.

Grass snakes in Cumbria are also known for their maternal incubation, i.e. the Female coils round her clutch, shivering, to raise the tempreature until the eggs hatch. This has been proven in various scientific studies on, not just colubrids but also Boidae, and the temp only gets raised a maximum of 2 Celcius, still not enough to allow the eggs to successfully hatch here.

While the Clyde Reptile and Amphibian Group http://www.carg.supanet.com/ was in operation, this organisation did intensive fieldwork and studies of possible habitats for herps in central Scotland, again no grass snakes were found.

Again if you want written conformation of this, and all the studies which have been done in Scotland so far, the information can be obtained by contacting or are in the IUCN books of conservation which I mentioned in my previous post.

Lothian: Dave Garner, Lothian Amphibian and Reptile Group, c/o Scottish Wildlife Trust, Room 22, Leith Walk Business Centre, 130 Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH6 5DT

Regards

Andy