Armenia, 25.04. – 03.05.2025

One week of exploring the mountain steppe of Armenia: A boy’s trip with Sönke Frahm, Gero Hilken & me (Peter). We had a splendid herping week in a hospitable country, with beautiful nature and plenty of Kebab meals – the perfect setting for a nice adventure!

As the major part of Armenia is located on high elevations, end of April is quite early for a trip to this country. However, we were lucky and had a week with warm temperatures, a lot of sun and only some thunderstorms. Although we didn’t see all Armenian herp species by far, we encountered a good number of herptiles. Here’s what we found:

Gero and me took the night flight to Jerewan on Friday evening and arrived at Jerewan on Saturday at 3.30 a.m.. We took a taxi to our hotel and had some hours sleep until Sönke arrived. After some welcome kisses and a quick breakfast, we headed to the Aschtarak area at the foothills of mount Aragaz – a mountain range of 4000 m altitude. On the mountain slopes, we enjoyed the beautiful Armenian spring flora – and also found some first reptiles: In lower elevations, numerous Ophisops elegans were active. Further species seen were Lacerta media, Heremites septemtaeniatus, Pseudopus apodus, Xerotyphlops vermicularis, Natrix tessellata, and Eirenis collaris. In higher altitudes at about 2000 m we saw some Lacerta media and some very shy Darevskia nairensis. Areas above 2500 m were still covered with snow. It was a beautiful atmosphere with people having picknick or collecting herbs on the meadows. A great first day!

We decided to start the second day with some sightseeing and went to Chor Virap monastery with its amazing view to Mount Ararat. The Virap hill was populated by Japanese tourists and some Heremites septemtaeniatus.

Next, we headed north-east for a stop at Azat reservoir: This artificial lake in the middle of a semi-desert landscape looks quite impressive. And the lake shores are populated by some nice species: Under stones, we found Bufotes variabilis. Active lizards were Ophisops elegans and Eremias strauchi – a swift and beautiful Sand-Racer. The highlight of the day however was the encounter of Eumeces schneiderii, a lovely Skink. 

The second part of our sightseeing tour was dedicated to the famous Geghard monastery and the Temple of Garni. What we didn’t take into account: It was Sunday and everyone had the same idea. Sightseeing on weekend is maybe not the best idea as we experienced during the traffic jam towards the monastery. However, this didn’t spoil our mood and we took it with humour.

We headed further south to the arid area near Wedi. There, we enjoyed the beautiful landscape with its interesting desert flora – and even found some nice herptiles: Again Bufotes variabilis, Eremias strauchi, Heremites septemtaeniatus and Natrix tessellata – but also Paralaudakia caucasia, an Agama which looks rather similar to the European Laudakia stellio.

We continued our route towards Chosrow Reserve, following the beautiful Wedi river valley. At a stop over, Gero rescued a beautiful Lacerta media from a water basin – a heroic action which was rewarded by some nice lizard shots. Other species seen here were Pelophylax ridibundus and Xerotyphlops vermicularis. 

We passed archaic landscapes while shepperds on horseback were guiding their sheep to the high altitude summer meadows. Near Vedi visitor centre, we gave another try for reptiles and found some Darevskia raddei with gorgeous blue flanks. However, it was late afternoon already and we still had a 2 hours drive to our next station north of Jerewan.

We started with a visit of some stations of Iris iberica – an iconic flower which is not too common in Armenia but cannot be overlooked in its stations.

The prime time of the day was dedicated to some viper search in some habitats north of Jerewan – which after all remained unsuccessful. However, we found some other nice reptiles and enjoyed the birdlife at the slopes of Mount Ara, a small mountain range which elevates on 2.500 m. Species seen were Lacerta media, Hemorrhois ravergieri and Dolichophis schmidti. Back at the hotel, it became cold and rainy, temperatures significantly dropped close to zero at night – not a good outlook for the next day.

Despite of the bad forecast, the weather was nice and sunny. So we decided to visit the shores of Lake Sewan. This huge lake is situated at almost 2000 m asl. in the middle of hardly populated mountain steppe – an impressive scenery. At Sewanawank we found plenty of lizards: some Darevskia unisexualis, numerous Lacerta strigata and also Lacerta agilis with its intense green colours. However, a lot of the Lacerta strigata were in a bad constitution: On their skin, they had bark ulcers / tumours which are, according to Spanoghe (2024), probably caused by a fungus.

Next station was Noratus, where we hoped to find Eremias arguta. In Noratus, they are proud of “their” special lizards with information boards and signs showing the way to the habitat. However, when we approached the place, strong wind with rain showers spoiled our lizard search. Hence, we had a break at the famous Noratus graveyard – a magic place! We enjoyed some coffee with excellent Baklava and bought some souvenirs. Soon, the rain stopped and we gave another try to find Eremias arguta; and finally succeeded. This lizard with its sturdy body, short head and short tail looks cute and archaic at the same time. The perfect steppe dweller.

The last stop of this day was the Hayravank Monastery with its scenic view over Lake Sewan. Species seen here were Darevskia nairensis, Lacerta strigata and numerous Natrix tessellata. Afterwards, we headed to our next accommodation at Wanadsor.

This day was a long ride through north-western Armenia: We left Wanadsor and had a first stop near Spittak where we hoped for Parvilacerta parva. We soon found this rare lizard basking under thorny bushes. It somehow resembles to Psammodromus hispanicus in habitus and behavior. Other species seen were Darevskia unisexualis, Lacerta strigata, Ablepharus bivittatus and Coronella austriaca. It was a shame that we didn’t have more time: We could have spent the whole day in that beautiful area. However, we still wanted to find vipers and therefore headed for the next place south of Gjumri.

The potential vipera habitat was an inconspicuous rocky hill. However, Montivipera raddei was quite abundant there and we managed to take pictures of this impressive snake. Besides of that, we found some nice lizards here: Darevskia nairensis and Lacerta strigata. Great!

Afterwards, we left the mountain steppe and went to the lowlands at Armawir. This area is intensively used for agriculture. In an overgrazed, degraded semi-desert area, we gave another try for herptiles. Species seen were Bufotes variabilis, Eremias strauchi, Heremites septemtaeniatus and Platyceps najadum. At a nearby pond we found Pelophylax ridibundus and Natrix natrix. A quite successful day.

We spent our last day in the Aschtarak area where we already had been on day 1. The weather was changeable with some thunderstorms interrupting our search. However, we still had some good findings: Pseudopus apodus, Ophisops elegans, Darevskia nairensis, Heremites septemtaeniatus and Zamenis hohenackeri. But our main goal of that day turned out tricky: We still hoped to photograph Macrovipera lebetina, which also occurs in that area. However, these vipers were very shy and difficult to approach – and handling a snake with such a strong temper wasn’t easy. So, no perfect trophy shot but we were happy to have at least some documentary pictures.

And a last fail: We encountered another big grey snake on a stone pile, which quickly disappeared. Assuming it was another Macrovipera lebetina, we came back some minutes later. The snake was out again but immediately disappeared. A single bad tele-shot revealed that it was Hemorrhois nummifer: This species does excellent mimicry of Macrovipera lebetina which protects it from being grabbed by over-ambitious herpers… 

However, the next thunderstorm stopped this last search of the trip. We finally went to a hotel at the airport to have a short nap. In the early morning, we took the return flight to Germany.

Armenia is a great country for naturalists, combining European and Asian influences. Travelling always felt safe and meeting the locals was always warm and friendly, despite of substantial difficulties in communication. Although Armenia is rather small, it is impossible to see all interesting places within one week – enough reasons to come back sometime!

Special thanks to Thomas Bader, Torsten Panner and Robert Hausdorf for providing us information about herpetological spots.

A huge thanks to Sönke & Gero for being such great travel companions!

1.       Bufotes variabilis

2.       Pelophylax ridibundus

3.       Paralaudakia caucasia

4.       Pseudopus apodus

5.       Darevskia nairensis

6.       Darevskia raddei

7.       Darevskia unisexualis

8.       Eremias arguta

9.       Eremias strauchi

10.   Lacerta media

11.   Lacerta agilis

12.   Lacerta strigata

13.   Ophisops elegans

14.   Parvilacerta parva

15.   Ablepharus bivittatus

16.   Eumeces schneideri

17.   Heremites septemtaeniatus

18.   Xerotyphlops vermicularis

19.   Coronella austriaca

20.   Dolichophis schmidti

21.   Eirenis collaris

22.   Hemorrhois nummifer

23.   Hemorrhois ravergieri

24.   Natrix natrix

25.   Natrix tessellata

26.   Platyceps najadum

27.   Zamenis hohenackeri

28.   Macrovipera lebetina

29.    Montivipera raddei

Arakelyan, M. S.; Danielyan, F. D.; Corti, C; Sindaco, R; Leviton, A. E. & Vasilyan, D.: Herpetofauna of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, 2011

Galstyan, T.: A Field Guide to the Plants of Armenia, Filbert Press, 2018

Spanoghe, B. (2024) -  Borkengeschwüre und Hautgeschwülste bei Eidechsen – Aufruf zur Mitwirkung. -  Die Eidechse, Magdeburg/Düsseldorf, 35 (2): 52-53.