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Patternless P.muralis

PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:45 pm
by Noah Meier
Hi there,

I observed last monday at the warm sunny afternoon a patternless Podarcis muralis male. As it seems the lizard hasn't done the first molting of this year yet. But shouldn't the pattern still be visible to a certain extend? I found the lizard in a stone wall close to Baden in Canton Aargau. Sorry for the bad quality of the picture (taken by mobile phone).

As I didn't remember to have seen a muralis like this before I was wondering about your experiences.

Kind regards
Noah

Re: Patternless P.muralis

PostPosted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 9:23 am
by Peter Oefinger
Interesting. Most Podarcis species have "concolor" morphs without dark markings - e.g. in P. siculus siculus they are quite common. But I haven't seen it in muralis so far.

Re: Patternless P.muralis

PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 4:21 pm
by Noah Meier
Peter Oefinger wrote:Interesting. Most Podarcis species have "concolor" morphs without dark markings - e.g. in P. siculus siculus they are quite common. But I haven't seen it in muralis so far.


Yes sure, very common in P.melisellensis, e.g. in Istria or Cres as well. I'm going to visit that spot in a few weeks again. Maybe I'll get a better shot of that specimen after it has molted.

Re: Patternless P.muralis

PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 4:59 pm
by Bobby Bok
I've seen very dark muralis but they always had a faint pattern, very special find and it would be interesting to see how this guy looks after shedding.

Re: Patternless P.muralis

PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 7:59 am
by Noah Meier
Hi,
Yesterday I visited the place again. As there are living estimated 10'000 individuals of P.muralis (of course it's less) in this stone wall I didn't manage to find the big male again. Instead I found a subadult specimen with the same patternless coloration. This one definitely doesn't seem to be currently in molting.

I saw another patternless wall lizard which went into hide and stayed there (so no picture there).

Greets,
Noah

_MG_0495.jpg
Juvenile patternless P.muralis

_MG_0500.jpg
Same individual in sunlight

_MG_0508.jpg
As reference: Usually colored female (pregnant), just a few metres from the one above...