RAUK - Archived Forum - Worm Wrestling Federation

It's rare I see Slow worms in the open at Frensham, let alone two, knocking seven shades out of eachother !

I watched these two go 'at it' for about 10 minutes, before one shot away. I'm not very familiar with slow-worms, so don't know if this was a mating display or a territorial dispute ?? Both demonstrated high levels of 'aggression' and the tussle was extremely energetic.

Any explaination gratefully received !

(Glad I flex'd off work early to take a short stroll, saw 5 out of our 6 reptile species within an hour :P)

hi steve first thing great pics, looking at the faint black stripe on both slow-worms looks to me like two females, my guess would be territorial, i may be wrong hopefully we will both get to find out the reason for this display

paul  

brilliant pictures i brt you were glowing when you walked away with those shots

I think it's two males, I've been squinting a lot at the pictures to be sure because I spotted the vertebral stripe also, but the smaller one has blue spots, practically always male (though I think David Bird reported a female with blue spots a while ago) - the other has a large thickset jaw. Females usually have much darker flanks than males and a more uniform black ventral surface. The first picture in particular gives me the impression of two males.

An interesting reference is:

Gonzalo,A.,Cabido, B.,Martin, J.,and Lopez,P. 2004. Detection and discrimination of conspecific scents by the anguied slow-worm (Anguis fragilis).J.Chemical.Ecol, Vol.30, 8:1565-1573

If you can get hold of a copy of this paper you will see that the researches found evidence that slow-worms actively avoid territorial disputes if possible.. SteveÆs pictures I believe show us why!

Great pictures Steve, I particularly like the first one where they are posturing before the battle.

It's a long sequence, so I might create a thread. I might be able to post the rest of the pictures tomorrow. This isn't highly compressed, but I have cropped it a bit.

Regards, Teresa

It is a male and female mating - in the last pic you can see the difference the male is biting the female which has the typical markings

Great pictures - would it be possible to use these in any future talks?

JC

Hi guys. I'm new here, but I've been using your web site as a resource for the last couple of years. I live in Hampshire, but I'm originally from Pembrokeshire, where adders are adders and sheep farmers are nervous.

I'm with Gemma on the sexing of Steve's slow worms. Two males. And each seems to be giving as good as he gets. I have been interested in British reptiles and amphibians for almost 30 years and, in that time, the only slow worms that have ever bitten me have been male.

If you look at my picture (more to follow) you'll see that the male is larger than the female. And he seems to be doing all the biting. I'm not saying that females don't bite, but from my experience, it is definitely a male trait. Also, their markings are totally characteristic of their sex. Note the female's dark flanks and pronounced stripes and the male's more uniform buff colour.

So that's my ha'pence worth. I'd just like to say that your pictures are excellent, Steve. You've caught them posturing, wrestling and hitting below the belt. Well done!

Teresa in Hampshire

JC, there are two separate sequences of pictures. The single closeup at the bottom of the page is mine. I think Steve's slow worms are Male-Male and mine are Male-Female. I haven't posted my sequence yet. I'm still choosing a selection to post. Who are you asking?

Teresa in Hampshire

Just for info, I only posted about 4 of my pics from a sequence of maybe 20. Unfortunately I was using a brand new camera and didn't yet know how to switch it to video mode (I'm a normal male, and didn't read the instructions :P).

But the gist is, I have more pics if people are interested, (I'll try to post to a web server rather than clutter this thread) I had never seen such a fight between slow worms....and prolly never will again.

Well both I would like to use them in my talks to nature conservation groups etc - of course all due credit will be displayed on the slide

JC

Full sequence at reduced resolution at:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v256/Ooh_Vicar/RAUK/WWF/

Lemme know any you're interested in Jon, and I can send thru high-res versions.

I have now posted my sequence of slow worm mating shots in a new thread in this forum. Let me know if you want to use my pictures in talks, JC, I'll send you the full resolution images. So long as I get my 15 minutes of fame, I'm happy.  ;)

Teresa in Hampshire