The genus Hemorrhois belongs to the family Colubridae and includes four species: Hemorrhois algirus (Jan, 1863), Hemorrhois hippocrepis (Linnaeus, 1758), Hemorrhois nummifer (Reuss, 1834) and Hemorrhois ravergieri (Ménétries, 1832). The Coin Snake, H. nummifer is distributed in west and south Turkey, Cyprus, countries of the Near and Middle East such as Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, N Iraq, NE Iran, Armenia, countries of central Asia such as Kyrgyzstan, E Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, in NE Egypt and Sinai (Schatti and Agasian, 1985). At the westernmost edge of its range H. nummifer occurs on several Greek Aegean islands such as Kastelorizo (Valakos and Papapanagiotou, 1985), Rhodes (Werner, 1935; Wettstein, 1953, 1965; Baran, 1976), Symi (Clark, 1972), Kos (Lotze, 1974, 1977), Kalymnos (Schneider, 1983), Leros (Dimitropoulos, 1987), Patmos and Lipsi (Chondropoulos, 1989). Recently the species has also been recorded on Lesvos (Hofstra, 2008). Here we present two new records of H. nummifer from the islands Chios and Samothrace, north of Aegean Sea, Greece.

The herpetofauna of Chios has been surveyed by Boettger (1876), Dimitropoulos (1987), Clark (1989) and Cattaneo (2003), without reference to H. nummifer. On 11 June 2009, in high noon with sunshine, north of Nea Potamia village on Chios island (38°31’, 25°56’), during a herpetofaunal survey of the www.herpetofauna.at team, Christoph Riegler, found, caught and photographed one adult specimen of H. nummifer of approximately 120 cm in total length (Fig. 1). The snake

was released exactly at the same spot it was captured after been photographed. This is the first record of the species on the island of Chios.

The herpetofauna of Samothrace has been repeatedly surveyed (Broggi, 1988; Buttle, 1989; Cattaneo, 2001; Clark, 1991; Ochsenhofer, 2012) without reference to H. nummifer. On 29 July 2011, around 14:00 p.m. with sunshine, at south of Therma village, N Samothrace (40°29’, 25°36’) a Greek photographer, Chris Zaponis, observed and photographed a juvenile specimen of H. nummifer, found close to a stream (Fig. 2). The observed snake moved freely and hid under stones without being caught, right after it was photographed. The photographer unaware of the species contacted one of the authors (S.I.) who maintains a relevant web page (www.herpetofauna.gr) requesting species identification. The same author (S.I.) received a second documentation of the species from the same region by Mr Reiner Weber who in detail described the locality in which he filmed an adult specimen on 4 June 2011 (video available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IXwE3sMTBk).

The above mentioned records expand our knowledge on the species’ known range. However, whereas the majority of the East Aegean Greek islands, containing the species, have been recently, i.e. during late Pleistocene, split from Asia Minor (Perissoratis and Conispoliatis, 2003) and are contained within the 100 m isobath, this is not exactly the case for Samothrace. The latter is contained in the 100 m isobath extending from north Greece, but it is separated by the Anatolian Trough (Gulf of Saros) with depths reaching 1000 m to the south from the nearest land, which is the island of Gokceada (Imbros). Because the species is known neither from Gokceada (Imbros) nor from European Turkey, its presence on Samothrace may be interpreted as either transmarine dispersal or human translocation from the Asian part of Turkey. Transmarine dispersal is not unusual and has been recently demonstrated for the island of Crete (Kyriazi et al., 2013). However,

Herpetology Notes, volume 6: 513-514 (2013) (published online on 30 October 2013)

New records of Hemorrhois nummifer (Reuss, 1834) from two Greek islands, Chios and Samothrace

and consequent biogeographic implications

Ilias Strachinis1,* and Petros Lymberakis2

1 Eptalofou 40, K. Toumba, 54454, Thessaloniki, Greece. 2 Natural History Museum of Crete, University of Crete,

Knossou Av., 71409, Irakleio, Crete, Greece.*Corresponding author; e-mail: info@herpetofauna.gr

Ilias Strachinis & Petros LymberakisXX

possible future surveys at the aforementioned areas and other Aegean islands (e.g. Lemnos) may offer a new perspective on the origin of the population from Samothrace.

Acknowledgments. We are thankful to Mr Christoph Riegler (www.herpetofauna.at), Mr Chris Zaponis and Mr Reiner Weber for providing us their data and the permission to use them in this

document. We would also like to thank Dr Jeroen Speybroeck (www.hylawerkgroep.be/jeroen) for his help and support on collecting basic data for this document.

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Figure 1. Hemorrhois nummifer from Chios, Greece. Photo by Christoph Riegler.

Figure 2. Hemorrhois nummifer from Samothrace, Greece. Photo by Chris Zaponis.

Accepted by Philip de Pous

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New records of Hemorrhois nummifer (Reuss, 1834) from two Greek islands XX