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Male courtship behavior in lizard species of the genus Lacerta usually begins by gentle biting in the female’s flanks, hind legs and tail. Eventually, the male will clamp onto the female by biting her flank followed by copulation. In Balkan Green Lizards (Lacerta trilineata) from the Peloponnese (Greece) the author observed an additional and very remarkable aspect of courtship behavior. Males repeatedly produced a clearly audible hissing sound during courtship which lasted up to 40 seconds. This suggests that sound is part of mating behavior in Balkan Green Lizards, a phenomenon that has not been described for any of the other species in the genus Lacerta.

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New data on estimated divergence times of the populations of lacertid lizards in the Balearic Islands are provided in this second update of the October 2011 article: Estimating recent divergence time in populations of Podarcis lilfordi (GÜNTHER, 1874) and Podarcis pityusensis (BOSCÁ, 1883) (VAN DEN BERG 2011), which received its first update May 2012. In most cases better estimations of divergence times were available by using the NAVIONICS SonarCharts™webapp.

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The area on the right bank of the Middle Rhine with the Lahn as the main tributary and the Rheingau is a German area rich in reptiles. 50 years of own observations in the area are summarized. The slowworm is widely distributed, while the common lizard is found on the heights and the sand lizard mostly in the valleys. The wall lizard is found in the valleys of the Middle Rhine and the Lahn up to the Limburg basin as well as in the Rheingau; it is not restricted to boulders and walls and has some dense populations which show a great variety. The Western emerald lizard is found only in a few places of the upper Middle Rhine valley; short-time concentrations, as can be observed in crows, lead to false conclusions about the population density. The protection of habitats and the exclusion of house cats and crows are absolutely essential for the conservation of this endangered lizard diversity.

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We report on our visit to the largest of the Ses Margalides islands during our spring 2015 herpetological trip to Ibiza. The island habitat is described, the herpetological history of the Podarcis pityusensis population on this island is summarized, and additional data of this population is given. Among this new data are pictures of red bellied green backed lizards, blue lizards, and a description of a light gray color morph, all previously unknown to this population.

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Mit dieser Bildserie wollen wir die Diversität von Hybriden der Mauereidechse veranschaulichen und deutlich machen, dass die Beurteilung der Hybridstatus von Mauereidechsen aufgrund phänotypischer Merkmale allein schwierig und oft nur spekulativ möglich ist.

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With this series of images we want to demonstrate the diversity of hybrids of the Common Wall Lizard, stressing that an assessment of the hybrid statuses of Wall Lizards based on phenotypic characteristics alone is difficult and often only possible in a speculative way.

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As a result of their taxonomical study of the populations of the Balearic lizard of Menorca Pérez-Mellado & Salvador (1988) described three new subspecies of Podarcis lilfordi. The type series of one of them, Podarcis lilfordi carbonerae, had been collected on an island called “Isla Carbonera” in 1933. The fact that their describers could not find this islet on any map, but did not hesitate to describe these lizards as a new subspecies, was not very reasonable and surely contributed to the mystery that should surround this subspecies from now on. But it was not this fact alone that casted a bad light on this taxonomic revision, because in-depth analyses revealed more awkward mistakes. Even the rediscovery of Podarcis lilfordi carbonerae by Pérez-Mellado et al. (2002) was only based on assumptions but did not contain any scientific proof. In this paper we give new information on the possible terra typica of Podarcis lilfordi carbonerae by introducing the Illa de Ses Mones. Because neither the En Carbó nor the Ses Mones lizards can be separated from the populations of the two nearby islands Illa Gran d’Addaia and Illa Petit d’Addaia by means of coloration or meristic and metric characters, we consider Podarcis lilfordi carbonerae Pérez-Mellado & Salvador, 1988 as a synonym of Podarcis lilfordi addayae (Eisentraut, 1928).