As the climate ever changes across the globe, every animals geographical presence is adapting to the new conditions. For this reason, reptile and amphibian atlases are vital to record movements in populations over time. It is a quite slow process, but the following species could one day become part of the French herpetofauna, some have even been recorded before possibly at error.
Amphibians
Portuguese painted frog - Discoglossus galganoi - Capula, Nascetti, Lanza, Bullini & Crespo, 1985
This species occurs to the west of the spanish Pyrenees close to France.
Discoglossus galganoi - © Jan van der Voort
Reptiles
Spiny-footed lizard - Acanthodactylus erythrurus - (Schinz, 1833)
This species is said to have been caught at the beginning of the 19th century near Montpellier by WESTPHAL-CASTELNAU (Collections de l'Ecole Nationale Supérieur d'Agronomie de Montpellier) as well as being mentioned by Jumeau (1879) as part of the collection of the Sète museum labeled as "Found locally". Another record was by Companyo (1861) in the Conat alley near Prades in the Pyrénées-Orientales. Since no further observations have been made.
Acanthodactylus erythrurus © Jan van der Voort
Dice snake - Natrix tessellata - (Laurenti, 1768)
This species is found extremely close to the french borders with Italy, Germany and following introductions into Lac Léman, now Switzerland where Lac Léman has a swiss and french side.
Natrix tessellata © Jan van der Voort
Portrait of Natrix tessellata © Jan van der Voort
Horseshoe whip snake - Hemorrhois hippocrepis - (Linnaeus, 1758)
This species has been recorded in three spanish localities very close to the french border, but more interestingly three observations of Western whip snake (Hierophis viridiflavus) were made in arid typical Mediterranean habitat near Collioure in France very far away from the know pyrenean Western whip snake populations. This could mean that due to the resemblance of the two species and the almost impossible occurrence of the Western whip snake in such arid habitat, a mistake could have been made in identification in which the specimens found far from the Western whip snake populations were in fact Horseshoe whip snakes.
Hemorrhois hippocrepis © Jan van der Voort
Portrait of Hemorrhois hippocrepis © Dan Kane
Lataste's viper - Vipera latastei - Boscá, 1878
This species was suposedly observed by Parent in 1981 on the southern side of Mt Canigou in the region of Vallespir. On the spanish side of the Pyrenees this species has been recorded in two localities, one in Andorra and the other just south east of Andorra. However these must be confirmed as it is surprising that this species has been observed at such altitudes where the Asp viper (Vipera aspis) is very common and dominant.
Vipera latastei © Konrad Mebert
Portrait of Vipera latastei © Konrad Mebert
