Siculus/melisellensis?

[Guillaume Labeyrie]

I agree, all siculus... Below some pics of melisellensis from Cres island, near Krk.

my first lizard with ticks !

nice male posing

female

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Thanks for perfecting that, Bero !

[Michal Szkudlarek]

One melisellensis photo from me- taken in Istra in the begining of september.

[Maarten Gilbert]

One melisellensis photo from me- taken in Istra in the begining of september.

Looks like a male Podarcis sicula to me... I found similar animals in Sicily a few years ago:

male

female

[Michal Szkudlarek]

They are emphatically otherwise patterned in comparison with Kevin's lizards. Is it any kind of variety consequently?

[Berislav Horvatic]

Thanks for perfecting that, Bero !

I stongly hope that was not meant ironically...
Actually, all the rules of the thumb you listed should be "perfected" in one way or another,
I just never find the time to do it properly. Here are some more hints:

* masseteric scale usually larger in melisellensis, often touching supratemporals
Werner: Too many exceptions discard this as a useful rule.
Also, the massetericum can be simply absent.

Supraciliar line (applies to females):
meli: continuous
siculus:discontinuous, decomposed in a series of spots

[Maarten Gilbert]

For me this usually does the trick: P. sicula (especially males) have a more robust head than P. melisellensis. I've never found a patternless P. sicula in Croatia though.

Both species can easily be mixed up.To illustrate this; the pictures shown in Dieter Glandt's "Taschenlexikon" under the P. melisellensis species account look suspiciously sicula-like to me...

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Bero, maybe I have been posting too much irony lately. Of course, this was a serious "thanks!".

Michal's lizard also says siculus to me... Anyone else?

[Thomas Bader]

Not to me. I have never seen the olivacea type of siculus in Northern Croatia, only also in Sicily.
I think Michal's is meli

[Jürgen Gebhart]

to me... Anyone else?

+1