Ana Štih

Association Hyla

As the human population in urban areas is continuously growing, urbanization is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. To mitigate the negative effects, the inclusion of blue zones (aquatic habitats) in modern urban development practices is strongly recommended, as they could be beneficial for the local biodiversity conservation. Odonata are...

Hermann’s tortoise ( Testudo hermanni ) is listed as “Near threatened” in the IUCN Red list of endangered species. The importance of protecting the Hermann’s tortoise populations and its habitats have led to the inclusion of the species within CITES Convention (Annex II), Annex A of EU Wildlife Trade Regulation, Annex II of the Bern Convention and...

Animals whose ecological niches largely overlap within a habitat can get into intra-specific and/or inter-specific competition for some of the limited resources available. We hypothesise that differences in locomotor abilities might be a key component deciding which individual will gain the resource, especially in animals with limited agility, such...

The Balkan terrapin (Mauremys rivulata) is an endangered species protected by the Habitats Directive. Its range in Croatia is restricted to the southernmost karstic aquatic habitats. Most of these habitats are antropogenic modifications of lentic and lotic water used historically for agriculture. The aim of this study was to investigate the availab...

Odonata is an amphibious insect order constituting an important link between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Members of the group are widely used as bioindicators of freshwater habitat health. The Odonata fauna of a total of 44 freshwater habitats in the wider area of Papuk Nature Park was investigated in the spring and summer of 2017 and 2019. T...

Occurrences of the Little Tiger Blue, Tarucus balkanicus (Freyer, 1844) in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina represent the northern and western distribution limits of this species in its entire range. During our surveys the species was observed at 27 locations in Croatia and two new locations in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The most interesting records are...

In this paper we report the first overview of dragonfly fauna of Lastovo Island, southern Croatia, based on published literature data and recent surveys conducted in 2014 and 2018. So far 16 species have been recorded on the island. The following five species were detected for the first time for the island within this survey: Ischnura elegans, Aesh...

The first overview of the amphibians and reptiles of Dugi Otok Island, Northern Dalmatia, is presented, based on the published data and new records collected during the last twenty years. A total of 15 species are present on the island, of which only one was not recorded on our surveys. In comparison to other islands of Northern Dalmatia, Dugi Otok...

Wetlands in the Mediterranean area represent one of the most endangered habitats, which have in the last century faced significant losses in numbers and in surface coverage. In order to assess the current status of the wetlands on the Adriatic islands, Association Hyla, along with partners, started to work on two projects, "KARST - the Dinaric Arc...

The Balkan Terrapin, Mauremys rivulata is critically endangered species in Croatia. It has very small distribution area and can be found only in Dubrovnik-Neretva county on three geographically isolated localities. It is listed on Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive and is a strictly protected species in Croatia. Also, all three localities...

The Mediterranean area represents one of the most important hot spots for the dragonfly diversity in Europe, and the same is true with the east Adriatic coastline in Croatia, on which more than 40 species of Odonata occur. Aside from lakes and rivers which are few and far apart, across the coastline and the Adriatic islands the karstic ponds repres...

Nature park Medvednica is located in the near vicinity of Zagreb, which resulted in surveys of flora and fauna of the mountain, spanning from the 19th century until today. Despite of that, many insect groups have never been surveyed, and one of such groups are dragonflies. So far, 71 dragonfly species have been recorded in Croatia, while for Medved...

The pond slider Trachemy scripta was one of the most commonly exported turtles until the last decade and often released into the wild outside its native range. It was introduced to Europe, Africa, South America and Asia and included on the EU list of 100 World's Worst Invasive Alien Species and the List of invasive alien species of Union concern. T...

The discovery of the previously unknown entomological collection of the academician Vanda Kochansky-Devidé is presented. The specimens were collected in the beginning of the 20 th century across Croatia and Slovenia, when she was only 10-14 years of age. The collection contains 341 specimens belonging to 174 species. 191 specimens belong to butterf...

The project „Conservation of the island wetlands of the Mediterranean basin” (MedIsWet) represents a replication of the Greek island wetland inventory project on all islands of the Mediterranean Basin. An important project outcome at the national level will be the first systematic standardized island wetland inventory in Croatia which is going to b...

Records of butterflies observed in the Croatian County of Istria have been compiled from published articles; these have been supplemented by unpublished records from the authors and their associates over the last few decades, and by a programme of field surveys in 2014 and 2015 to fill the gaps in the localities visited. A total of 136 species were...

During a nine-year survey of the Hrvatsko zagorje region carried out from 2008 until 2016 we recorded 112 butterfly species. Records were supplemented with seven species known only from literature data, which amounted to 119 species representing 60 % of the Croatian butterfly fauna. The highest butterfly diversity was registered on the mountains Iv...

The Zrmanja is one of the largest rivers in Dalmatia, along with the rivers Krka and Cetina. At the same time it is one of the least surveyed larger rivers in the region, with only a few published records about its dragonfly fauna so far. Between 1984 and 2010 the authors collected data about the dragonflies around the river Zrmanja and its surroun...

The territory of Croatia is inhabited by two species of freshwater turtles: the Balkan Terrapin (Mauremys rivulata) and the European Pond Turtle (Emys orbicularis). Unlike the European Pond Turtle, which is widespread throughout the whole country, the Balkan Terrapin is present only in the far south which also represents the southwestern edge of th...

Dragonfly fauna of Hrvatsko zagorje has never been systematically studied and accordingly literature data about dragonfly fauna of mentioned region are almost non-existent. This is corroborated by the fact that 75 dragonflies species are so far known from Croatia, while for the Hrvatsko zagorje 13 species have been recorded in the literature. Since...

Entomologists have researched into the butterflies of Zagreb City with different levels of intensity since the beginning of the 20th century and recorded a great number of species. Many butterfly sites historically surveyed are now completely changed or have completely disappeared due to the expansion of the city and changes in habitat management....

grecian Copper Lycaena ottomana (Lefèbvre) is southern european species with only a single locality in Croatia prior to now. In a ten day period during 2012 we recorded 95 specimens (69 males and 26 females); consequently this species is now known from 22 localities in southern Croatia, from the Cavtat area in the west, Sniježnica Mountain in the n...

The fauna of Zagreb has been well investigated during the last two centuries, which is evident from a series of publications. Even so, only limited data on dragonfly fauna of Zagreb have been published, and there is no current checklist. During the three years period (2009-2011) we conducted a survey of the dragonfly and damselfly fauna (Insecta, O...

A total of 104 butterfly species were recorded in the wider surroundings of the river Zrmanja in Croatia between April and September of 2010. The region is exceptionally rich as this number represents 55% of all species recorded in Croatia. Euro-Siberian and Mediterranean species are prevailing. The known area of occur-rence has been expanded for s...

After the first confirmed record of L. petropolitana in Croatia on Mt Snježnik, another specimen of this species was caught on the nearby Obruč Mt in May 2010. This record expands its known area of occurrence in Croatia to the northwest and suggests that L. petropolitana could in the future be found on other mountains of Gorski Kotar and in their s...

During the survey of butterfly fauna of Dalmatian mountains in the last years, Proterebia afra dalmata (Godart, 1824) was found on several new sites, including the first records of this subspecies at higher altitudes (Poøtak, Svilaja, Promina, Kameønica and Dinara Mts.). In this paper we present a much more com-plete picture of the distribution of...