Reptilia · Squamata
Podarcis hispanicusSteindachner, 1870
Iberian Wall Lizard
Identification not confirmed. One observer recorded this animal as this species and no one has since agreed, so the photograph may show a different animal.
Photograph by Diego González Dopico, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 74 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Podarcis atrata, Podarcis hispanica — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Lacertidae › Podarcis
- Grows to
- 74mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 13years
Longer than 64% of all species in Lacertidae anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 35 to 444 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
44 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2008
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 13years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 34.4°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 31.9°C89 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28–35.8°C82–96 °F
Castanet 1994: 3; Jesus 2012: 13, Bauwens and Diaz-Uriarte 1997: 19 months
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 74mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 53mm2 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 53mm2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 24.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 24.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 9.4g0.33 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 3.98g0.14 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.37g0.01 oz
max 74 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 3480m
- Range size
- 62,283km²
- Home range · largest recorded
- 171.2m2
Arthropods / Omnivorous (Cooper and Vitt 2002, Alvarez 2004)
Active foraging
Terrestrial and Saxicolous (see Sources (general) column)
90 to 1,180 m.a.s.l. (Bassitta et al. 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 2.85eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.1–3.6eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 3per year
- Clutches a year
- 2–4per year
- First breeds at
- 8months
1-5 (Maso and Pijoan 2011)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Podarcis hispanicus hispanicus STEINDACHNER 1870 Podarcis hispanicus cebennensis GUILLAUME & GENIEZ in FRETEY 1986 Podarcis hispanicus sebastiani (KLEMMER 1964)
- Described by
- Steindachner
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1870
- Type locality
- Spain
Keeping one
11.5 in × 11.5 in × 7.25 in(30 × 30 × 19 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 3 in (74 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 94 °F (34.4 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 9 g, the heaviest recorded for Iberian Wall Lizard — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Lacertidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Podarcis hispanicus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/podarcis-hispanicus
@misc{podarcis_hispanicus_2026,
title = {Podarcis hispanicus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/podarcis-hispanicus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.