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Male Balkan wall lizard

Small (up to 8 cm body length) and slender lizard with highly elaborate dorsal pattern. Along the middle of the back streches a bright green band bordered with irregular rows of small brown blotches.

(Photo: Bálint Halpern)

The BALKAN WALL LIZARD has a flat body with flat elongate head. Total (body+tail) length up to 20 cm. Males have a green band along the back which is brighter in the breeding season.  Sides of the back and upper flanks green or olive with dark brown and creamy white spots, and a creamy white line along the mid-flanks. Belly usually off-white, orange in breeding season. Females similar to males, but less strongly marked and paler in colour. Young similar to adults, but often lacking the mid-dorsal green band.

Distibution map by our National Herpetological Mapping Program:

Male Balkan wall lizard

In Hungary it prefers dry sandy grasslands with low vegetation and open sand patches.

(Photo: Bálint Halpern)

Balkan wall lizard on the Hungarian Great Plain

In Hungary tha Balkan wall lizard inhabits only the open sandy grasslands of the Great Plain

(Photo: Bálint Halpern)

Orange belly of a male Balkan wall lizard in the breeding season

Belly of males turns orange in the breeding season.

(Photo: Bálint Halpern)

Balkan wall lizard in a burrow

Although it tolerates hight temperature, at mid-summer it retreats into burrows during the hottest hours of the day.

(Photo: Bálint Halpern)

Balkan wall lizard in a burrow

Although it tolerates hight temperature, at mid-summer it retreats into burrows during the hottest hours of the day.

(Photo: Judit Vörös)

Female Balkan wall lizard

The pattern and coloration in females is duller, less elaborate than in the males, but similar in its main outline.

(Photo: Gergely Babocsay)

Male Balkan wall lizard

Elaborate pattern with a mid-dorsal bright green band.

(Photo: Nikola Rahmé)

Young Balkan wall lizard

The coloration of young is similar to that of the adults, but they miss the mid-dorsal green band.

(Photo: Tibor Sós)

Belly of male Balkan wall lizard

During the breeding season the belly of males is orange. On ghis specimen the femoral pores characteristic of males are conspicuous.

(Photo: Bálint Halpern)