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nfortunately, however, the ban on
tradedidnothing topreservepopu-
lationsof these lizards.On thecontrary,no-
wadaysmore species aremoregreatlyen-
dangered thanpreviously.Theprophesyby
all those reasonablepeople,who stated at
the time that small creatureswill never be
endangeredbydirectpersecution,but inva-
riablyonlybybiotopedestruction,remained
unheardbutproved tobeabsolutely true.
Oneof the few lizard species that still turns
up regularly in the terrarium trade is the
CommonLong-TailedLizard,Latastia longi-
caudata.The specimens currentlyavailable
originatepracticallywithoutexception from
Tanzania.
Thecollared lizards
Beforewe look at Latastia longicaudata in
U
Fromtheearlydaysoftheterrariumhobbyaround1880rightuptothe1970s,the
nativelizardsofsouthernandcentralEurope(Lacertidae)wereamongtheanimals
mostfrequentlykeptintheterrarium.Thenconservationlegislationlargelybanned
these lizardsfromthetradeandtheythengraduallyslipped intooblivion.
Red runnerswith littlecollars
byThorstenHoltmann
CommonLong-TailedLizard,
Latastia longicaudata,
fromTanzania.
All photos:FrankSchäfer
moredetail,a fewwordson itsphylogenetic
relationshipsarerequired.It isn'tsovery long
ago that themajorityof the trueorcollared
lizards of the family Lacertidaewere called
by the genus name
Lacerta
.All collared li-
zards (well,almostall,thereareaveryfewex-
ceptionsbut theyareof no relevancehere)
share the common feature of a "collar" or
neckband,a foldof skinbetween the scales
of the throat andbreast,with this fold itself
usually coveredwith scaleswitha freepo-
sterior edge.At present 309 species are re-
cognized
-
rium.cz), but new species are constantly
beingdiscovered.
Inaddition to theactual species,mosthave
a number of subspecies. Don't worry, we
aren'tgoingtoenumerateall thesubspecies
hereas therewouldn'tbeenoughspace for
that in thewholeof theNews.But oneex-
ampleshouldbecited:theCommonWallLi-
zard (
Podarcismuralis
),whichalsooccurs in
Germany,has - dependingon the author -
evolvedeight to11 subspecies. It is in fact
quitecommonforcollared lizardstodevelop
local forms. But it hasn't been explained
whether this is a result of their high repro-
ductive rate,orwhether collared lizards are
simplyundergoinganevolutionarythrustat
thepresent timeandareheavily involved in
speciation.
Lizards
