Sand lizard markings

Right, now have a pretty decent selection of pics of Surrey Heath Sandies, and have even knocked up a format for recording the markings to distinguish individuals.

What I now need is a system for characterising the markings, which saves me from checking each old photo against a new pic. Obviously location can be a fliter, but I need something which represents the markings, maybe numerically.

This MUST have been done with such things as fingerprints before pattern-matching on modern PCs. Before I re-invent the wheel and create my own system, does anybody know of an extant system in use ? would make far more sense for me to adopt a system than create a new one !

Any help out there ??

Cheers David,

My German is passable, or failing that I'm still in contact with my Austrian Ex. who happens to be a technical translator :P either way I'm sure it would be useful. The email link on my signature should work.

I'll keep this thread updated on any progress.

Further to Chris GO's post please see my reply to the (now nearly a year old) topic re races. Although it sets out general principles re the differences between races (and they are pronounced enough so that most of us with experience can identify the race by appearance alone about 70% of the time) I have to agree with Chris re the difficulty in applying a universal rule. It can be no more than guidance. As I said in the post under the topic mentioned:-

"Having said this - every variation can be seen in every location. it would appear that the variations occur naturally and a combination of trace minerals in the habitat and natural selection (i.e. which pattern provides the best camouflage) are the determinants as much as the racial genes."

That does sound interesting. Certainly Sand Lizard markings seem to be as individual as fingerprints and effective as an identification at this level. I am not so sure at race level because all variations can be seen in all races at some time. I doubt if it could improve much on the "expert's" identification.

Regarding re-introductions of La, yes, where it is clear what race would have been found in a given area then only the appropriate race is used. For example, Welsh re-intros being thus far restricted to the North & West use the Merseyside race as there is historical contiguity of suitable largely dune habitat. Further South there are areas where it is difficult to decide whether Surrey or Dorset animals are more appropriate but these two races are far more similar to each other anyway.