Ящерицы семейства Lacertidae: разнообразие и эволюция.

Family of lizards

The Lacertidae are the family of the wall lizards, true lizards, or sometimes simply lacertas, which are native to Afro Eurasia. It is a diverse family with at about 360 species in 39 genera. They represent the dominant group of reptiles found in Europe.

The European and Mediterranean species of lacertids live mainly in forest and scrub habitats.

Lacertids are small or medium sized lizards. Most species are less than 9 cm long, excluding the tail, although the largest living species, Gallotia stehlini, reaches 46 cm, and some extinct forms were larger still. They are primarily insectivorous. An exception is Meroles anchietae, one of the few wall lizards that regularly eat seeds – an appropriate food for a lizard of the harsh Namib Desert. Lacertids are remarkably similar in form, with slender bodies and long tails, but have highly varied patterns and colours, even within the same species. Their scales are large on the head, which often also has osteoderms, small and granular on the back, and rectangular on the underside. Most species are sexually dimorphic, with the males and females having different patterns. and three species give birth to live young, including the viviparous lizard, Zootoca vivipara. Fossils possibly attributable to lacertids are known from the Paleocene of France and Belgium, though the oldest definitive lacertid is known from the early Eocene (Ypresian) of Mutigny, France in the Paris Basin. Lacertids dispersed into Asia by the early Oligocene. The timing of the colonisation of Africa is uncertain, ranging from the Eocene to the Miocene.