Volume 2 issue 1

Abstract

Bangor university is well known in the UK for its wealth of experience in herpetological research. The university also has an extremely active student herpetological society which arranges site visits, training and conferences on a regular basis and has a meeting every week. A student committee arrange a herpetological seminar every week which in the past has included other students, zoo workers, ecological consultants and researchers and plenty in between! The committee also organises a short field excursion abroad, yearly in the Spring for some lucky members. In 2018 the logistical side of this trip was being handled by a new organisation, Captive and field Herpetology, which is itself owned and founded by a Bangor alumnus. C&F lead herpetological excursions, primarily to India but with more destinations on the horizon, with an emphasis on community engagement and research and try to escape the well-trodden herping paths wherever possible. Slovenia and Croatia were chosen as this year’s BUHS trip destination, following a successful visit there by a previous student group. Unfortunately only a single member from that previous trip managed to join us this year and so most of us had no experience herping whatsoever in these countries. We visited (or attempted to visit!) a few locations used by the previous group but largely relied on opportunistically identified habitat from satellite images and records of species from social media. The rest of this report consists of day by day accounts of the places we journeyed to and the amphibians and reptiles found at each, with healthy doses of field observation and anecdote thrown in for good measure. 
 
 March 25th London Stansted ---> Ljubljana 
 The first day didn’t see much in the way of herping. Our evening flight from London to Ljubljana was delayed and after losing a further hour to the time difference and