Reptilia · Squamata
Podarcis muralisLaurenti, 1768
Common Wall Lizard
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating lizard from the Palearctic region, reaching 78 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Lacerta muralis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Lacertidae › Podarcis
- Grows to
- 78mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 16years
Longer than 72% 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
46 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
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 16years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 31.5–34°C89–93 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 32.2°C90 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28.3–36.1°C83–97 °F
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Castanet 1994, Bogin et al. 1999 (10), Jesus 2012: 10, TAUM museum records: 10.1, Bauwens and Diaz-Uriarte 1997: 38 months, Hallmann and Griebeler 2015: 8.5, Altunisik et al. 2016 (5 in nature), Eroglu et al. 2018 (16 in nature), see also Kolenda et al. 2020
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 78mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 63.7mm2.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 63.8mm2.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 24.45mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 24.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 10.98g0.39 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 5.41g0.19 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.36g0.01 oz
max 78 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
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 7–9months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2800m
- Range size
- 1,837,145km²
- Density
- 13.6–554per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 26m2
Invertebrates / Omnivorous (21% plants, Cooper and Vitt 2002, "very rarely eat fruit", Rogner 1997b), Corti and Cascio 2002 and Mollov and Petrova 2013 give detailed accounts - no vegetable matter mentioned (same in Giulia et al. 2019)/insectivore (Sagonas et al. 2017), arthropods and gastropods (Barnagaud et al. 2020)
Banfi et al. 2023
e.g., Sagonas et al. 2017, Pafilis et al. 2017, Barnagaud et al. 2020
Saxicolous (e.g.,Sagonas et al. 2017)/Terrestrial / scansorial (Arnold 1987), saxicolous (60%) and terrestrial (40%, Barnagaud et al. 2020)
2700 (Hallmann and Griebeler 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 4.93eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–13eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.6–6.3eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–6per year
- First breeds at
- 12–48months
5-6 (Sindaco et al. 2010), 2-11 (Maso and Pijoan 2011, Speybroeck et al. 2016), mean of different populations: 4.6-6.26 (Bejakovic et al. 1996), 2-8 (Stojanov et al. 2011, Hraoui-Bloquet 1987), 2-6, means 3.6-4.4 (Pellitteri-Rosa et al. 2012), 6 (Hallmann and Griebeler 2015), 2-12 (Kwet 2015), mean 6.5 (Barnagaud et al. 2020)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Laterata
- Subspecies
- Podarcis muralis albanica (BOLKAY 1919) Podarcis muralis appenninica (TADDEI 1949) Podarcis muralis baldasseronii (TADDEI 1949) Podarcis muralis beccarii (LANZA 1958) Podarcis muralis breviceps (BOULENGER 1905) Podarcis muralis brongniardii (DAUDIN 1802) Podarcis muralis colosii (TADDEI 1949) Podarcis muralis maculiventris (WERNER 1891) Podarcis muralis marcuccii (LANZA 1956) Podarcis muralis muralis (LAURENTI 1768) Podarcis muralis nigriventris BONAPARTE 1838 Podarcis muralis sammichelii LANZA 1976 Podarcis muralis tinettoi (TADDEI 1949) Podarcis muralis vinciguerrai (MERTENS 1932)
- Described by
- Laurenti
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1768
Keeping one
12.5 in × 12.5 in × 7.75 in(31 × 31 × 20 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 (78 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 89–93 °F (31.5–34 °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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 11 g, the heaviest recorded for Common 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.
Morphs
3 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 0 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Regulatory changes in pterin and carotenoid genes underlie balanced color polymorphisms in the wall lizard. — Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2019
- Pterin-based pigmentation in animals. — Biol Lett 2021
- Physiological phenotypes differ among color morphs in introduced common wall lizards (Podarcis muralis). — Integr Zool 2024
- Skin colourpeer reviewed
- Physiological phenotypes differ among color morphs in introduced common wall lizards (Podarcis muralis). — Integr Zool 2024
- Adaptive introgression reveals the genetic basis of a sexually selected syndrome in wall lizards. — Sci Adv 2024
- The role of historical biogeography in shaping colour morph diversity in the common wall lizard. — Mol Ecol 2024
- Regulatory changes in pterin and carotenoid genes underlie balanced color polymorphisms in the wall lizard. — Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2019
- Pterin-based pigmentation in animals. — Biol Lett 2021
- Physiological phenotypes differ among color morphs in introduced common wall lizards (Podarcis muralis). — Integr Zool 2024
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 · adult female, mean
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Type locality
- — 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 muralis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/podarcis-muralis
@misc{podarcis_muralis_2026,
title = {Podarcis muralis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/podarcis-muralis}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.