Reptiles
Common Wall Lizard
Podarcis muralis · also called European wall lizard
If you have sat outside a cafe in Italy or the south of France and watched a small brown lizard dart along a stone wall, freeze in a patch of sun, then vanish into a crack, you have seen a common wall lizard. It is one of the most familiar reptiles in Europe, and one of the most successful colonists, with populations now thriving far from home, including millions in the American Midwest.
Overview
Podarcis muralis is a small, slender lizard, about 20 cm long including the tail, with a flattened head and body built for pressing into cracks in stonework. It is usually brown with dark mottling, often with a green or rusty wash in males, and the outer belly scales are frequently pale blue. It lives across central and southern Europe in rocky, sunny places — walls, ruins, vineyards, and railway banks — and hunts insects and spiders by day.
A creature of walls and sun
The wall lizard is among the most heat-seeking of European lizards, basking on any bright day, sometimes even in winter where the climate is mild or a city wall holds warmth. Grabbed by the tail, it sheds it along a weak point and regrows a shorter one.
A world-class colonist
The species readily founds new populations from a few released animals. The Cincinnati “Lazarus lizards” descend from a handful brought back from Italy around 1951 and now number in the millions. Non-native colonies are also established across southern England, where they sometimes out-compete the native common lizard.
Status
The common wall lizard is Least Concern and increasing, abundant at home and spreading through natural range expansion and many successful introductions.
Common Wall Lizard: common questions
How do you tell a common wall lizard from other small lizards?
It is slim and long-tailed, with a flattened head and body, a pointed snout, and long toes, and it usually looks brown or grey-brown with fine dark mottling, often with a greenish or rusty wash on the back in males and a row of dark and pale marks along the flanks. The belly can be white, cream, pinkish, or orange, sometimes with dark spots, and the outermost belly scales are frequently pale blue. Compared with the viviparous or common lizard, the wall lizard is flatter, more angular, longer-tailed, faster, and far more tied to vertical stone surfaces. It also lays eggs, whereas the viviparous lizard gives birth to live young in most of its range.
Are common wall lizards native to Britain?
No. Britain has three native lizards, the viviparous or common lizard, the sand lizard, and the legless slow worm. The common wall lizard is a Continental species whose colonies in Britain, now found at dozens of sites mostly in southern England, all trace back to animals that escaped or were released from the pet trade, private collections, and wildlife parks, some deliberately established decades ago. Many of these colonies are long-standing and self-sustaining. Because the wall lizard can out-compete the native common lizard in some habitats, its spread in Britain is watched with some concern rather than welcomed.
What are the Lazarus lizards in Ohio?
They are common wall lizards living in and around Cincinnati, Ohio, thousands of kilometres from the species' natural range. The population is generally traced to a boy, later identified as a member of the Lazarus family that ran a local department store, who brought back a small number of wall lizards from a family holiday in northern Italy around 1951 and released them in a rocky area near his home. With no native lizards competing for the same walls and rock piles, and with the warm microclimates of stone walls, railway cuttings, and buildings, the lizards thrived, and they have since spread across much of the Cincinnati area, numbering in the millions.
How does the common wall lizard survive cold winters?
It hibernates. From roughly October or November, as temperatures fall, wall lizards retreat into deep cracks in walls and rock, under stones, and into old burrows and root holes below the frost line, often several individuals sharing a good site. There they become dormant until spring, usually emerging in February or March, with males often appearing first to bask and regain condition before the breeding season. In the mildest parts of the range, and in city habitats warmed by buildings, wall lizards may come out to bask on sunny days even in the depths of winter, which is one reason they do so well in urban settings.