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ID Species from skin: |
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Mark T Member Joined: 27 Apr 2006 No. of posts: 7  View other posts by Mark T |
Posted: 18 May 2006 Good morning I am trying to improve my ID skills and wondered if it was possible to identify which species a shed skin belonged to. I know that Adders and Grass Snakes both have keeled scales (not sure on Smooth). But is there a sure fire way to differentiate Adder & Grass Snakes. I dont want to have to rely on habitat. If its possible to determine the sex as well, that would be very impressive Thanks Mark |
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Robert V Senior Member Joined: 06 Aug 2004 No. of posts: 717  View other posts by Robert V |
Posted: 18 May 2006 Mark, if you hold the skin up to the light, you should be able to clearly distinguised the zig zag stripe down the middle if its an Adder 'cast off'. Then again, if the tail (from the vent to the tip) appears to be considerably smaller in girth dimension than the body around the vent, its a good bet that it was a female. If the tail appears long and tapered and is not that much thinner than the lowest part of the body, chances are its from a male. Also, when distinguishing between adder and grass snake, they are a completely different shape when full grown, so i would only expect you to have difficulty in ID if the slough is from a juvenile. R RobV |
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GemmaJF Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 No. of posts: 2090  View other posts by GemmaJF |
Posted: 18 May 2006 Hi Mark, As well as the guidance Rob has given, you can also sex and identify species with scale counts from a slough. Ventral scale and sub-caudal counts are useful. Take a look at Smith The British Amphibians and Reptiles for numbers for each species and some guidance on how to count scales. Tony Phelps has mentioned before that the markings are often clear enough on an adder slough to use the head pattern to identify the individual snake. You'll find somewhere a thread about using a code to ID adder from scales on the head - works for sloughs too
Gemma Fairchild, Independent Ecological Consultant |
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armata Forum Specialist Joined: 05 Apr 2006 No. of posts: 928 View other posts by armata |
Posted: 19 May 2006 Also ventral scale clips are visible on shed skins. Found a skin of southern adder today; a female, and the clip was clearly visible; this species is small, this individual 28cm. 'I get my kicks on Route 62' |
- ID Species from skin |
