Order Squamata
Suborder Scincomorpha

Family Lacertidae (Wall Lizards)

Appearance: Elongate lizards with conical heads on distinct necks, long and robust trunks, long moderately thick tails, and well-developed limbs (hind distinctly larger than fore). Scalation is also fairly uniform with large head scales, granular scales dorsally on the neck and trunk, and enlarged abutting scales ventrally; a few genera (e.g., Algyroides, Ichnotropis, Takydromus) have large, often keeled dorsal scales. Lacertid scalation and body forms are similar to those of the teiids, although lacertids are usually smaller (Zug et al. 2001). Darevskia is distinguished from Podarcis by alternating narrow and broad whorls of scales around tial and keeld scales on tibia and tail. Distribution: Africa, Europe and Asia; 3 species have been introduced to northern America.
Behaviour: Diurnal.	Male Lacerta agilis, Germany. © Peter Uetz.

Habitat: All species are terrestrial. European and Mediterranean species live mainly in forest and scrub habitats. Eastward Eremias and Ophisops replace them in the grassland and desert habitats of Asia. African species usually live in rocky, arid areas. Holaspis is one of the few arboreal lacertids, and its single species (Holaspis guentheri) is a glider, although apparently a poor one using its broad tail and flattened body as an aerofoil (Zug et al. 2001).

Size: Small or medium-sized; usually less than 9 cm snout-vent length, but a few species exceed 15 cm SVL (Lacerta lepida).

Food: Primarily insectivorous. Meroles anchietae (formerly Aporosaura anchietae) is one of the few Wall lizards that regularly eats seeds, not an unlikely food for a lizard of the harsh Namib Desert.

Reproduction: At least 8 species of Lacerta are parthenogenetic and all are oviparous except for some populations of Lacerta vivipara.

Species list compiled by Wolfgang Bischoff (Bonn, Germany). Based on previously published lists (Bischoff, 1990-1992).

Subfamily Gallotiinae

Gallotia Psammodromus

Subfamily Lacertinae

Algyroides Australolacerta Darevskia Dinarolacerta

Iberolacerta Lacerta Parvilacerta

Podarcis Takydromus Teira

Timon Zootoca

Subfamily Eremiainae

Notes:

1. Ommateremias, Pareremias, Rhabderemias, Scapteira are subgenera of Eremias.
2. Apathya and Archaeolacerta are usually treated as subgenera of Lacerta or Darevskia.
3. The gender of Podarcis remains unresolved (ARNOLD 2000). The the ICZN commands in such cases to treat the name as masculine.

Click on genus to get a list of species. Use the Search form for more sophisticated searches (HELP on Search).

Phylogeny of the Lacertidae: most parsimonious trees (MPTs) of lacertids from combined data (from Fu 2000).

The numbers above the lines are bootstrap proportions greater than 0.50. The numbers below the lines are decay indices greater than six. A, the single MPT with the primary outgroups. B, the single MPT without the primary outgroups.

Taxa name abbreviations: Adolfus j.=Adolfus jacksoni; Adolfus v.=Adolfus vauereselli; Gallotia g.=Gallotia galloti; Gallotia s.=allotia stehlini; L. (Archaeolacerta) b.=Lacerta bedriagae; L. (Archaeolacerta) m.=Lacerta monticola; L. (Archaeolacerta) v.=Lacerta valentini; Lacerta m. (s.s.)=Lacerta media; Lacerta s. (s.s.)= Lacerta schreiberi; Meroles c.=Meroles ctenodactylus; L. (Teira) a.=Lacerta andreanszkyi; L. (Teira) p.=Lacerta perspicillata; L. (Timon) l.=Lacerta lepida; L. (Timon) p.=Lacerta pater; L. (Zootoca)=L. vivipara; Meroles s.= Meroles suborbitalis; Podarcis h.=Podarcis hispanica; Podarcis m.=Podarcis muralis; Podarcis s.=Podarcis sicula.

More recently, Mayer & Pavlicev (2007) have published a more detailed analysis. Note that the tree of Fu et al. (2000) also significantly contradicts the results of Harris et al. (1998). The 3 groups also sampled different subsets of the Lacertidae.

References:

Arnold, E.N. (1991)
Relationships of the South African lizards assigned to Aporosaura, Meroles and Pedioplanis (Reptilia: Lacertidae).
J. Nat. Hist. 25: 783-807

Arnold, E. N. (2000)
The gender of Podarcis and the virtues of stability, a reply to W. BÖHME.
Bonn. Zool. Beitr. 49 (1-4): 71-74

Bischoff, W. (1990)
Übersicht der Arten und Unterarten der Familie Lacertidae 1. Die Gattungen Acanthodactylus, Adolfus, Algyroides und Australolacerta.
DIE EIDECHSE, Bonn/Bremen, 1: 18-23.

Bischoff, W. (1991a)
Übersicht der Arten und Unterarten der Familie Lacertidae 2. Die Gattungen Eremias, Gallotia, Gastropholis, Heliobolus, Holaspis und Ichnotropis.
DIE EIDECHSE, Bonn/Bremen, 2: 14-21.

Bischoff, W. (1991b)
Übersicht der Arten und Unterarten der Familie Lacertidae 3. Die Gattung Lacerta.
DIE EIDECHSE, Bonn/Bremen, 3: 5-16.

Bischoff, W. (1991c)
Übersicht der Arten und Unterarten der Familie Lacertidae 4. Die Gattungen Latastia, Meroles, Mesalina, Nucras, Ophisops, Pedioplanis und Philochortus.
DIE EIDECHSE, Bonn/Bremen, 4: 17-25.

Bischoff, W. (1992a)
Übersicht der Arten und Unterarten der Familie Lacertidae 5. Die Gattung Podarcis.
DIE EIDECHSE, Bonn/Bremen, 5: 6-20.

Bischoff, W. (1992b)
Übersicht der Arten und Unterarten der Familie Lacertidae 6. Die Gattungen Poromera, Psammodromus, Pseuderemias, Takydromus und Tropidosaura.
DIE EIDECHSE, Bonn/Bremen, 6: 13-17.

Fu, J. (1998)
Toward the phylogeny of the family Lacertidae: implications from mitochondrial DNA 12S and 16S gene sequences (Reptilia: Squamata)
Mol Phylogenet Evol 9 (1): 118-30

Fu, J. (2000)
Toward the phylogeny of the family Lacertidae - Why 4708 base pairs of mtDNA sequences cannot draw the picture.
Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 71: 203-217

Harris, D. J., E. N. ARNOLD & R. H. THOMAS (1998a) Relationships of lacertid lizards (Reptilia: Lacertidae) estimated from mitochondrial DNA sequences and morphology. Proc. R. Soc. London, B, 265: 1939-1948

Harris, D. James; E. Nicholas Arnold, and Richard H. Thomas (1998)
Rapid Speciation, Morphological Evolution, and Adaptation to Extreme Environments in South African Sand Lizards (Meroles) as Revealed by Mitochondrial Gene Sequences.
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION 10 (1): 37

Harris,D.J., Arnold,E.N. & Thomas,R.H. (1999)
A phylogeny of the European lizard genus Algyroides (Reptilia:Lacertidae) based on DNA sequences, with comments on the evolution of the group.
J. Zool. (London) 249: 49-60

Lamb, T. & A.M. Bauer (2003)
Meroles revisited: complementary systematic inference from additional mitochondrial genes and complete taxon sampling of southern Africa's desert lizards.
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 29: 360-364

Mayer W, Pavlicev M. (2007)
The phylogeny of the family Lacertidae (Reptilia) based on nuclear DNA sequences: Convergent adaptations to arid habitats within the subfamily Eremiainae.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 44 (3): 1155-63

Salvador-A (1982)
A revision of the lizards of the genus Acanthodactylus (Sauria: Lacertidae).
BONNER ZOOLOGISCHE MONOGRAPHIEN (No. 16) 1982: 1-167

Schlüter, U. (2003)
Die Langschwanzeidechsen der Gattung Takydromus.
Kirschner & Seufer Verlag, 110 pp.

Zug,G.R.; Vitt, L.J. & Caldwell, J.P. (2001)
Herpetology, 2nd ed.
Academic Press San Diego, London, [...]XIV + 630 pp.

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