Podarcis erhardii

[Peter Oefinger]

Hi there,

one question: is Podarcis erhardii thessalicus a valid subspecies or are they all P. e. riveti?

Regards
Peter

[Mario Schweiger]

Peter,

here some informations, given to me by Werner Mayer:

There is no difference between thessalicus and riveti (no morphological or DNA).
ssp. thessalicus was described by Cyren in 1938 from the NE side of Olympus mountain.
Chabanau described riveti 1919 from Strkovo, a village east of lake Prespa. Gruber, in the "Handbuch, 1986" gives the terra typica with Strkovo, Macedonia (FYROM).
But there is, and was never, a village called Strkovo in FYROM.

But there is a village Plati east of Mikri Prespa lake, and the former name was Strkovo. All "foreign" spelled village names have been changed to Greek ones in 1919.

riveti is distributed from Albania, FYROM and Bulgaria south to the Mornos valley (between Vardussia and Giona mountain ridges, Nomos Fokida, 30 kms beeline NW of Delfi, Greece.

Mario

[Peter Oefinger]

Thank you, Mario,
so, I think, P. erhardii from Mount Ossa and Olymp should be referred to as P. e. riveti?

[Mario Schweiger]

Yes, Podarcis erhardii from the Ossa and Olympis mountains are ssp. riveti.
Here is a video of a pair of ssp. riveti, filmed a few kilometres south of Grevena, Greece, in middle of June 2008.

Mario

[Peter Oefinger]

Great, Mario - that why I love lizards...