[Animals] Lizards

[Mindsphere.]

 

The most varied and widespread species of reptiles that live today are lizards. About 3,000 species are known, which are grouped into 23 families. They can live in any environment, most preferring the intertropical zone. Due to their speed and ability to climb (they can climb up to 4000 m altitude), lizards can avoid many predators. The lizard has a fleshy, thickened skin that forms small scales and protects it from dryness. The eyes are protected by a thin, transparent membrane. Hearing is well developed, as is smell. On the jaws the lizard has numerous conical teeth, overgrown with the jaw. The tongue is muscular, mobile, forked at the top and can be easily projected out. The brain of reptiles represents only 1% of body weight. The field lizard is small up to 20 cm in size, the tail having twice the length of the body.

In Romania it is a strictly protected species, in some European countries, the species has disappeared, due to habitat destruction and soil pollution. The back is green-olive-reddish, the green being more pronounced in the anterior part, the dark gray sides, with two whitish stripes, parallel and interrupted by irregular spots, brownish-blackish, which can be seen at the upper and lower edges of the stripes.

The abdomen in females yellow or green, in the male yellow or reddish. On the sides of the gastrostegas with blue spots. The tail, on the upper part, gray-brown, and ventrally yellow. The species lives in open places and consequently must be very fast, to get rid of predators. It is also protected by camouflage color.

The lizard lives on grassy, sandy soils, dunes and rocky parts. in Muntenia and Dobrogea it is found especially on dry, grassy lands, at the edge of the forest and in rarities on the edges of crops and even inside them, less often in the stony regions.