Giant Italian Lizards Invade Queens!
Saturday, June 9th, 2007When we first visited Ridgewood Reservoir back in April, a local told us that there were hundreds of large lizards at the site in the summer. That was hard to believe since New York has almost no native lizard species (in fact, only two, both skinks). You occasionally see an escaped pet iguana; but they never make it through the winter. However today on our fourth trip to the site we found one of the rumored lizards and trapped it in a bottle so we could get a closer look:
Al Ott identified this as an Italian Ruin Lizard, a.k.a. Italian Wall Lizard, Podarcis sicula. Rob Jett also recognized it from a trip to Rome. They’re an invasive species that has been settling small colonies on Long Island for the last three decades or so, and they’re expanding. So far all we have is this one specimen, but I suspect we’ll see more as the summer progresses.
How they make it through a New York winter I have no idea; but apparently they can do that, something few native American lizards can do.
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