Scaly creatures great and small
The poet Martial (first century AD) related the passion of one Glaucilla for wandering around ancient Rome with a snake round her neck. The priests of Asclepius in ancient Greece would let snakes crawl over the patients’ bodies in the belief they could work a cure. And the females of some reptile species can retain sperm for two to seven years. These are some of the fascinating facts in «The Reptiles of Greece and Cyprus» (Erpeta tis Elladas kai tis Kyprou), published by the Goulandris Natural History Museum in collaboration with Koan/Books of the World on February 22, 2002. This comprehensive field guide – the first in Greece – to assorted tortoises, turtles, terrapins, snakes, lizards, geckos and chameleons is the outcome of 10 years of work by authors Achilleas Dimitropoulos and Yiannis Ioannidis, who recorded the over 60 species of Greece and Cyprus. It was no easy task. When the authors started out, in 1978, there was no one comprehensive Greek-language guide for the disparate species of Greece, the eastern Aegean and Cyprus. Nomenclature was often non-existent. The authors had to scour the treasure trove of ancient and modern appellations to find names, or translated Greco-Latin scientific terms. Long overdue (at the crossroads of Europe, Africa and Asia, Greece and Cyprus are rich in reptiles, with several endemic species and subspecies), this work would still have been welcome even if it had not been so superbly professional and attractive. It is divided into four parts: A highly informative introduction, a list of the species themselves (Cyprus gets a special section) and beautiful, detailed drawings of the reptiles by author Dimitropoulos that make nose-horned vipers look winsome. More practically, they render differences in color and markings, not only between, but also within, species or subspecies, since the mountainous nature of the Greek landscape favors fragmented, widely varied populations. The fourth section comprises color photographs, some of them rare (e.g. the endemic Gyaros whip snake). Handy page references, an index, a glossary and a bibliography make this book a must for even the casual reader. Currently available in Greek, it will come out in English later this year.
