Galan's mountain lizard
| Galan's mountain lizard | ||||||||||||
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Galan's mountain lizard ( Iberolacerta galani ) |
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| Iberolacerta galani | ||||||||||||
| Arribas , Carranza & Odierna , 2006 |
Galan's mountain lizard ( Iberolacerta galani ) is a species of lizard from the genus Iberolacerta .
features
Galan's mountain lizard is the largest and most robust species within the genus Iberolacerta . The front and rear legs are relatively small. Males reach a head-trunk length up to 69.1 millimeters, females up to 84.4 millimeters. The back of the males is green, blue-green, or gray-green during the mating season. In the shoulder area and on the front flanks there are 2 to 7, rarely up to 11, bright blue eye spots. Often 2 rows of irregular dark spots extend over the back. There are particularly strong and dark spots on the flanks, which can also be fused together like a network. Outside the mating season, the males are greenish-yellow to gray-yellow. The back of the females is pale to gray-green in color and much less speckled than that of the males. A wide band runs along the flanks on both sides, which is uniformly brown to dark brown in color. As with the males, there are blue eye spots. The belly is colored pastel green and turns greenish-white in the area of the throat. Dark spots are only present on the edges of the abdomen. Young animals are brown to yellowish-gray in color. Their tail is bright blue. From hatching on, males are drawn more like a reticulate than females.
Occurrence
Galan's mountain lizard occurs only in the Montes de León in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula . It has so far been detected in the provinces of León, Zamora and Orense in the Sierra Segundera, the Sierra de la Cabrera, the Sierra del Eje and the Sierra del Teleno.
The species is a high mountain lizard. Previous finds come from altitudes from 1000 to 2000 meters above sea level. Their habitat is rocky landscapes with open bush and grassland above the tree line. The subsoil consists of igneous rocks, black slate or hard quartzites. The climate is cool and humid. The vegetation of the scrubland consists primarily of the woody plants Juniperus nana , Genista sanabrensis , Cytisus oromediterraneus , Calluna vulgaris and Erica aragonensis , interspersed with Deschampsia iberica . In the grasslands, Nardus stricta , Agrostis capillaris and Phalacrocarpum oppossitifolium dominate .
Way of life
Little is known about the way of life of Galan's mountain lizard. Individual observations revealed that clutches were deposited under flat stone slabs and young animals hatched in August.
Systematics
Galan's mountain lizard was first described by Arribas, Carranza & Odierna in 2006. It is named after the Spanish herpetologist Pedro Galán Regaldo. No subspecies are described.
supporting documents
- Dieter Glandt : Pocket dictionary of amphibians and reptiles in Europe. All types from the Canary Islands to the Urals. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-494-01470-8 , pp. 389-390.
further reading
- Oscar Arribas, Salvador Carranza, Gaetano Odierna: Description of a new endemic species of mountain lizard from Northwestern Spain: Iberolacerta galani sp. nov. (Squamata: Lacertidae). In: Zootaxa . 1240, 2006, pp. 1–55, digital version (PDF; 1.99 MB) .
Web links
- Iberolacerta galani inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Posted by: Oscar Arribas, 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2014.
- Iberolacerta galani in The Reptile Database