New lizard in Tenerife

1996/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Zoologia

The new lizard discovered a few months ago on the cliffs of Tenerife has a length of almost half a meter. The zoologist Efrain Hernandez of the University of La Laguna, during his stay in the Teno massif of the west of the island, found excrements that seemed quite large to him to be of a normal lizard. Then, with the help of the helicopter, they could detect the lizard.

After genetic analysis, it has been revealed that Gallotia is the subspecies of the simonyi lizards, the relative of the giant lizard of the Canary island of El Hierro. The genus Gallotia is only present in the Canary Islands, where the species of this genus have evolved: Gallotia simonyi de Tenerife, Simonyi simonyi de El Hierro and Simonyi stehlinii de Gran Canaria. They are 45 to 75 centimeters long and omnivorous.

The species Gallotia simonyi, in Tenerife, was considered to have been lost about 500 years ago, but the idea was half. How many specimens live now, how many eggs lay, etc. want to investigate.