Ibiza Wall Lizard

Pitiusan lizard ( Podarcis pityusensis )

The Pitiusan lizard ( Podarcis pityusensis ) or Pitiusan wall lizard belongs to the family of the Real lizards ( Lacertidae ) and to the genus of wall lizards ( Podarcis ).

The Pitiusan lizard is a diurnal lizard that occurs in their habitat in large numbers and shows little fear. It eats insects and other arthropods, plants and food residues ( eg ripe fruit, or bread crumbs ).

Features

It has a six to nine centimeters long, sturdy body, which is not flattened. Your head is short, the tail is relatively long. The back color is mostly blue - green but can also vary. Most of the lizards have small furrows that join together to form three longitudinal rows. In particular, the middle row is often crossed by black net-like strips. The underside is often drawn light gray to bluish. The dorsal scales are keyed hexagonal and weak.

Habitat

The Pitiusan lizard comes almost exclusively on the front belonging to the Balearic island of Ibiza and Formentera group. In addition, there is a small population on Mallorca. Also in Barcelona on the Spanish mainland, the Pitiusan lizard has been spotted.

In Ibiza to their habitat from sea level extends from to approximately 475 meters. Here it is mainly in bushes, ruins, stone walls or rocky wasteland properties to be found on the smaller islands on rocks.

Subspecies

On the many isolated islands in distributed areas, live more than 40 subspecies, of which 22 are still valid and look different.

Confusion species

The closely related Balearic lizard with 25 subspecies inhabits the neighboring archipelago of the Balearic Islands. The differences are: the plates of the dorsal scales Pitiusan lizard are coarse and slightly wedged ( sh Build ). There are two other common wall lizard, the lizard glasses and Madeira wall lizard. These two species were also introduced to the European mainland.