This is good news for biodiversity, and information that will leave neither hot nor cold for those who generally prefer to stay away from snakes. A smooth coronella was observed in the commune of Sore, during a prospecting trip by naturalist volunteers from the Biodiversity Club of the Maison de la nature du bassin d’Arcachon.
“The objective is to better understand the species of the territory,” says William Caudron, project manager at the Landes de Gascogne Regional Natural Park, also trained and specialized in herpetofauna, the naturalistic science of recognizing amphibians and reptiles.
The meeting took place on Friday April 12, during a scouting day which was not very fruitful, apart from this “great find”. Because apart from this specimen of snake, the group only came across wall lizards. “It was too hot, snakes need to thermoregulate. So like us in the middle of summer, they take shelter from the heat. »
No fangs, no venom
“We tend to confuse them with vipers,” describes the specialist. Large individuals are up to 90 centimeters long. They eat small lizards or other small snakes. Snakes do not have fangs or venom, the smooth coronella kills its prey by constriction. »
The presence of “Coronella austria” in the Landes de Gascogne territory is known, but on the 360,000 hectares of the park, it still has to be encountered. “She is difficult to observe. It appreciates damp moors and cool environments. » This meeting is therefore “a very good piece of data” for William Caudron. “Generally speaking, in the heart of the Landes forest massif, there are gaps in prospecting and knowledge. » The aim of the outing was to train the volunteers so that they could look for species themselves and record observations (1).
All reptiles are now protected, recalls the specialist. “People are not very well trained to differentiate between snakes and vipers, which is a real problem since these are species which are rather in decline in population. Snakes mimic vipers by folding their heads into a triangle. You have to look at the pupil of the eye, slit like in cats for the viper, and round for the snake. Or the scales on the head. In snakes, we have 9 plates, and in vipers, lots of small ones. »
Rare and low-conflict encounters
Aware of people’s common aversion to snakes, William Caudron explains: “Snakes are very discreet, very wild animals, which are especially afraid of us because we are big predators for them. They tend to run away from us. » Head-on encounters between a human and a snake are quite rare and generally not very conflictual, the snake will flee.
“There is only the green and yellow snake, the most common in our territory, which can easily reach 1.60 m, which tends to try to scare us. She has no venom, she will blow very hard to impress and make us leave. »
Finally, note that there is the SOS serpents d’Aquitaine system (by telephone at 06 40 98 42 04 or by email at [email protected]), to contact a network of volunteers who support in the event of problems with a snake in his garden or house. “If we learn how the viper works, we can keep this danger away from our daily lives, and we can be around each other without worry. » The PNRLG provides observation training every year for residents. This was the case last weekend in Louchats (33).
(1) Via the public database of the Fauna observatory, or the private database, such as that of the LPO, Faune Nouvelle Aquitaine.
