Turkey 2016
 

Magnificent landscapes, lots of refreshing water, amazing antique cities, good food, and friedly people; these are some of the many good reasons to visit Turkey. July and August are actually not the best months to travel in Turkey (too hot, too many tourists) but we had a great time criss-crossing the Taurus mountains, covering almost 3,000 km.

For me as a biologist, Turkey is mainly home of several species of Hoplopholcus, a genus that ranges from Hungary to Crete, the Kaukasus, and Israel, but that seems to have its highest diversity in Turkey. Somebody has estimated that Turkey has some 20,000 caves, and it is exactly these caves that most Hoplopholcus species prefer as a habitat. We visited about 30 of them, and saw Hoplopholcus almost everywhere. Below are six of the Hoplopholcus species I photographed, H. asiaeminoris, H. patrizii, and four undescribed species.