THE EXPEDITION MEMOIRS 2002

by Aydın Örstan

THE BODRUM PENINSULA LAND SNAIL SURVEY - 5-17 August 2002

Participants: Aydın Örstan (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh), Francisco Welter-Schultes (Zoologisches Institut, Göttingen), Zeki Yıldırım (Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Burdur), Burçin A. Gümüş (SDÜ)

Bodrum (ancient Halicarnassus) is located at the foot of a limestone hill by the Aegean Sea in the region of western Turkey that was known in the antiquity as Caria. Bean (Turkey Beyond the Meander, 1989) gave a good introduction to the antique history of Halicarnassus, while Erez (İstanköy Altı Bodrum, 1996) presented a useful account (in Turkish) of the recent history of Bodrum, especially from the early to mid-20th century.

Map of the Bodrum Peninsula showing our collection stations. Gray represents limestone.

I first had the idea to do some sort of survey for land snails primarily over the mountain behind Bodrum in August 2000 when I visited Bodrum and did some collecting on the hills behind the city. During the following 2 years and over the course of many e-mails with the future participants, the idea developed into a survey of the entire Bodrum Peninsula.

Our “base camp” was the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Bodrum where Francisco and I were staying. During the day we went out on collecting trips in Zeki’s trusty car, which incurred but one flat tire over many bad roads it conquered. And the hot evenings were spent sorting and identifying the day’s collections. Before we first got together in Bodrum on 5 August 2002, none of us had met in person before. Nevertheless, we got along rather well.

Burçin, Francisco and Zeki looking for shells at the ruins of an unidentified building.	Nightlife in Bodrum: Zeki and Francisco picking shells from soil samples.

We collected at 69 stations over the Bodrum Peninsula and 2 on Kara Ada, a small island off Bodrum. Most of our stations were in areas where the rocks were limestone, although we did have several stations in the western half of the peninsula that is covered with volcanic rocks. We found 50 species of land snails (38 native, 12 introduced) within our survey area. Among the most common native species were Albinaria lerosiensis (Pfeiffer, 1841), Orculella ignorata Hausdorf, 1996 and Metafruticicola proclivis (Martens, 1889), while Helix aspersa O.F. Müller, 1774 was the most common introduced snail. A manuscript on the results of the survey has been submitted for publication.

We climbed this hill in the blazing sun to reach the cliffs below the peak.	Metafruticicola proclivis, one of the most common land snails on the Bodrum Peninsula.

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Text & Photographs Copyright © Aydın Örstan 2004

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