I encountered a lizard three times while on an outing, and it seemed to be the same one?

If you see a small lizard running among the grass and rocks while taking a walk in the suburbs of Beijing, it is very likely the protagonist we are going to talk about today - the beautiful spotted lizard.

Eremias argus is a small lizard belonging to the genus Eremias in the family Lacertidae. Its species name "argus" comes from the many-eyed giant Argus in Greek mythology. The spots on the body of the Eremias argus resemble eyes, which is also the origin of its species name.

Specimen of the beautiful spotted lizard, image source: GBIF

The average body length of the beautiful spotted lizard is 100mm, with sesame-sized spots on its body. Its body is brown, its head is round and blunt, there are white vertical stripes on the sides of its body, its abdomen is milky white, and it has ear holes.

There are two subspecies of the beautiful spotted lizard, namely the nominative subspecies and the western subspecies. Among them, the nominative subspecies is produced in Yantai, Shandong, and the western subspecies is produced in Shanxi.

Lacerta fasciatus (Yantai, Shandong) Photo credit: lacerta.de

The Beautiful Spotted Lizard is a diurnal lizard that is very energetic at noon and in the afternoon and runs very fast. It is distributed in dry and warm areas such as hills, grasslands and plains. It lives in bushes and holes. Sometimes it digs its own holes and uses the holes of the flower-backed toad (Bufo raddei Strauch) as its own hole.

The Beautiful Spotted Lizard is a ferocious predator that mainly feeds on various insects, such as Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Hymenoptera (bees) and Diptera (flies and mosquitoes), which are beneficial to humans.

The beautiful spotted lizard hibernates in winter and wakes up in the spring of the following year. They reproduce after waking up from hibernation, laying 2-8 eggs at a time. The newly born lizards are the same as their parents, but smaller in size. The young lizards will gradually grow up by molting again and again, and often need to eat more food than adult lizards during their growth period.

A species similar to the Eremias brenchleyi is the mountain Eremias brenchleyi. The two are easily confused. The difference is that the mountain Eremias has a longer tail, while the Eremias brenchleyi has a relatively short tail.

Lacerta lizard (South Korea), photo source: lacerta.de

Mountain lizard, photo from lacerta.de

The beautiful spotted lizard is distributed in East Asia and Northeast Asia, including China, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, and Mongolia. In China, it is distributed in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Beijing.

Beijing can be seen in rock cracks, meadows, sand and low shrubs in the suburbs. Because the beautiful spotted lizard is timid by nature, you must be very quiet when observing it.

Distribution area of ​​the beautiful spotted lizard, image source: GBIF

Although the beautiful spotted lizard is not an endangered species, it is often caught in the wild because it is easy to catch in the wild. It is then packaged as a "easy to keep, safe and sterile" reptile and enters the pet market. However, wild lizards have severe stress reactions, will break their tails when in danger, and are likely to carry parasites, so they are not suitable for keeping as pets.

At the same time, because it is difficult to breed the beautiful spotted lizard artificially, those bought as pets are almost all individuals caught in the wild. Every summer and autumn, there will be batches of wild lizards entering the pet market, because the lizards are in the breeding season at this time, which is a period of relatively frequent activities.

In addition, habitat destruction and the capture of them for use in traditional Chinese medicine and wine are two major reasons for the decline in the number of lizards. The beautiful spotted lizard is now listed as a national "three-protected" animal (wild animals with beneficial or important economic and scientific research value), and it is illegal to capture and raise them.

So how do we protect this cute and beautiful little elf? We must not destroy the natural environment where the beautiful spotted lizard lives, not buy lizards from unknown sources such as wild capture (there are currently cases of artificial breeding of beautiful spotted lizards and other lizards in China), not release exotic species into the wild, and not abandon pets.

Not disturbing them is actually the best way to protect them!

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Interesting facts about species

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1. The beautiful spotted lizard runs very fast, so it is called "Mongolia racerunner" in English.

2. The beautiful spotted lizard is not poisonous, and there are no poisonous lizards in China.

3. The beautiful spotted lizard is often called the mini taiga in the pet trade because it looks similar to the Argentine black and white taiga (Salvator merianae). However, it is inferior to the beautiful spotted lizard in terms of size and intelligence. The taiga lizard has no kinship or convergent evolution relationship with the lizard.

Real Argentine black and white teaga, image source: Wikipedia

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Audit expert: He Jiale, project officer of WWF Northeast resident team

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