Fauna of Samos

Equivalent to the rich germination is also the fauna of the island.
Hedgehogs, boars, rabbits, foxes and jackals, constitute the wild life of Samos. We ought to refer that only on the Samos island can find jackals. From Soricidae family are bats, various rodents and ferrets.

 It is very interesting observing the vast number of birds species that live consistently or for a while on the island. More specific, 139 kinds have been observed in Samos, 39 of them are native, 28 live there only the winter, 26 live there during the summer, 26 pass during their immigration and 20 have not been verified yet. Partridges, finches, sparrows, wild pigeons are some of the most common. Over the winter months the humid bio-reserves accommodate egrets, coots, Black Stilt, ducks and the beautiful Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber Linnaeus). Over the same period, build their nests in the mountains small and bigger raptors, like owls and eagle hawks.

In the ample wetlands, many species of amphibious can be seen, from which braska, toad and bakakas are the most common.
Samos’s fauna is enriched also by the reptile’s diversity. In this category can be included the Greek tortoise, the water turtle, many kinds of snakes , like dentrogalia that is harmless, the ottoman viper and astritis whose poison is really dangerous.
Other creatures that belong to this family are lizards. The most ordinary is the “tiflitis” that looks like snake, “prasinogoustera”, “avlefaros” ,”little crocodile” and the rarest is the chameleon that it is defined as a protected species. We can respond also Samos’s lizard (Anatololacerta anatolica) that lives only on the island and Asia Minor’s shore.

Previously there were many sea turtle Loggerhead – Caretta caretta and mediterranean monk seal monachus monachus at the rocky beaches of Samos. Today there are few of them on the northwest coast, in place Saitani and that’s why the area is protected by directive Natura 2000 (code GR4120003).

Shrinking population of seals and dolphins, owe mainly from the lack of food, due to overfishing and the large reduction in catches, and for the human presence in the areas they lived.

At the areas that identified today the seals, prevailing winds and the sea is almost always turbulent, a situation that makes difficult the fishing and maybe this will be reason to survive.

At the end of this part, there must be a reference to the crowd of insects, the bounteous germination contributes to their number’s development. Most of them live parasitical on plants, animals even on human.