Melanism in Natrix Natrix and Natrix Tessellata (Serpentes: Colubridae) From Montenegro

Abstract

This article present melanism in two species: Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758) and Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) from Montenegro.

Melanism in the grass snake Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758) from the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, Romania

“…We have encountered all three melanistic morph categories, as defined after Zuffi (2008), and as much as we could identify them, they have been previously reported in N. natrix across its range (Fuhn and Vancea 1961;Naumov and Tomović 2005;Zamfirescu et al 2010;Zadravec and Lauš 2011;Mollov 2012;Gvozdenović and Schweiger 2014;Habiboğlu et al 2016;Kolenda et al 2017;Bjelica and Anđelković 2021;Yenmiș et al 2022). Both the present study and recorded cases in literature of melanistic grass snakes rely on visual encounter surveys.…”

“…The third morph, the partially melanistic morph, was the least encountered numerically and in only two localities visited (Figs 1, 3A, Table 1). The partially melanistic grass snakes were previously recorded in grass snakes in Croatia and Montenegro (Zadravec and Lauš 2011;Gvozdenović and Schweiger 2014).…”

“…Across Europe there have been recorded melanistic individuals in different snake species such as Zamenis longissimus (Zadravec and Lauš 2011), Coronella austriaca (Nash et al 2016), Vipera berus (Terhivuo 1990;Strugariu et al 2009;Nash et al 2016). Melanistic individuals have also been recorded in the semi-aquatic Natrix species (Baran 1976;Naumov 2007;Ajtić et al 2013;Gvozdenović and Schweiger 2014;Jablonski and Kautman 2017).…”

“…We still have a limited understanding of the distribution and frequency of the melanistic morph in N. natrix populations throughout its range. Reports of melanistic individuals of grass snakes have been made from Turkey (Baran 1976;Habiboğlu et al 2016;Yenmiș et al 2022), Bulgaria (Naumov and Tomović 2005;Stojanov et al 2011;Mollov 2012), Serbia (Bjelica and Anđelković 2021), Croatia (Zadravec and Lauš 2011), Montenegro (Gvozdenović and Schweiger 2014), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bašić and Zimić 2016), Slovakia (Jandzik 2004), Poland (Błażuk 2007;Kolenda et al 2017;Bury et al 2020). In Romania, there are only three general literature mentions of melanistic N. natrix, all of them from the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (DDBR) (Fuhn and Vancea 1961;Halpern et al 2002;Zamfirescu et al 2010).…”