SUMMER ADVENTURES - Episode 18 - EUROPEAN WALL LIZARD
This is the most common lizard here ...
... small, agile and always ready for short fast sprints.
These wall lizards are present everywhere in town.
You can find them in the garden, all around the house and sometimes inside too, you can see them crossing the streets, running fast across the hot asphalt, you can spot them in the local restaurants, post office or a shopping mall ... I saw this lizard once even in the bank that looks so modern, sterile and impenetrable.
Yes, they are really present everywhere ... but ... they also have their favorite habitat ...
... the old stone walls of the traditional houses, covered with moss, lichens, and ivy that still can be found in the old center of this fast-growing touristic mutation of town made from the once small village...
... and ... especially ...
... the, also old and even ancient, drystone walls surrounding the small cultivated fields and olive orchards on the rocky terrains near the sea ... where these photographs were taken ... not exactly on the wall but in the desiccated shrubs heavily covered with lichens that are put there to make the wall higher.
And here, in this scene that reminds me of something from the seafloor, these branches with lichens look very much like rocks and corals covered with algae, the lizard is perfectly camouflaged.
These Lacerta Muralis are about 20 cm long including the long tail.
They are very fast and agile climbers and short distance runners with great camouflage ...
... and very successful insect hunters.
... and that's it :) ... as always in these posts on Steemit, the photographs are my work
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STOPMy apologies if I keep repeating myself, but the photos are amazing!
hehe thank you for the repeat, thank you, thank you ... etc
They eat insects---is it considered that they control pests, or do they eat indiscriminately and do as much harm as good? I just figured out muralis means wall. I guess lacerta means lizard?
It's a beautiful animal, but I don't think I'd like to find one in my kitchen. What do the cats think of it? Do they stalk, or is it too fast for them?
As usual, wonderul photos and a fascinating look into an aspect of nature with which I am unfamiliar (there's a lot of that!)
Hehe, cats hunt them, sometimes with some cats, the lizard gets killed, but most of them survive cat attacks by staying still until the cat loses the interest and the tough scaly skin protects them meanwhile. I saw them eat mostly flyes, ants and various wormlike things, worms, small centipeds or some larvae ... I don't think they do any harm, at least I didn't hear anything about that. To only real pest in this area is the big apartment houses building a business, this is like locusts, they buy terrain, build big ugly boxes with no green and barely a parking place, half of those apartments are sold to people that are dreaming & trying to make a lot of money in the very short tourist season and a half or more stay empty for decades, the building is low quality and in few years it shows ... the result - pseudo urban growth with no trace of some real development or long term benefit ... and pure architectural ugliness.
By pests, I meant plant pests, that destroy vegetation. I guess one critter's pest is another critter's friend.
I get you meaning about the development pests. When I was a child (long ago), I could see a field from my bedroom window and beyond that a grassy hill. Beautiful. Between the hill and field was a stream. Can you imagine?
But then one day large construction vehicles showed up. They dug out the side of the hill because it had gravel. Then more large vehicles came and in the distance these horrible structures grew...trailers! My hill became a trailer park. The field was still there, but you see I get your drift.
Sorry for those greedy pests who are scarring your community.
I think that in all those intricate relations in the food chain, these lizards are harmless or slightly beneficial to various plants by eating various small invertebrates, some of them pests and some not.
Hello @borjan, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
Thank you very much :) glad you stopped by and liked this post.