One of the 9 wall lizards on WAnimals
Reptiles · Squamata · Lacertidae
Cyren's Rock Lizard
Iberolacerta cyreni
It faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future. See full glossary
Cyren's rock lizard is a Spanish endemic restricted to the summits of the Sistema Central: Guadarrama, Gredos and Béjar. It lives on scree and grassland above the treeline and is a glacial relic: it was left isolated on the summits when the ice retreated, and the warming climate is pushing it upwards in mountains that have no more height to offer.
Size
6 cm – 8 cm
Lifespan
8 years
Diet
Insectivore
Feeds mainly on insects and other invertebrates.
Activity
Diurnal
Active mainly during the day.
Social structure
Solitary
Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.
Sighting difficulty
Hard
Fun facts
- It is a glacial relic trapped on the summit: it was left isolated on the peaks of the Sistema Central when the ice retreated, and as the climate warms it can only go up, in mountains that have no more height left to offer.
- Its total range amounts to a few square kilometres spread across three massifs, and the populations of each sierra have been out of contact with each other for thousands of years.
- The males develop a greenish tone and blue spots on their flanks during the breeding season, and communicate through chemical secretions from the femoral pores that other lizards detect with their tongues.
Life cycle & biology
- Skeleton type
- Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (reptile)
- Habitat & environment
- Stony ground, scree and high mountain grassland of the Sistema Central, above 1,700 metres
- Size at birth
- About 2.5 cm of body on hatching
- Sexual maturity
- 2 years
- Gestation / incubation
- 50 days of incubation
- Litter / clutch size
- 5 eggs
Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberolacerta_cyreni
Where to find it
See its range on the interactive mapBest time: From May to September, on sunny days, above 1,600 m in Gredos, Guadarrama and Béjar, on scree and rocky outcrops.
Where to watch it
Parks and dive sites where this species has been documented.
Related species
Other species in the catalogue with the most in common with Cyren's Rock Lizard — same habitat, park, country, tags or family.
Spanish Wall Lizard
Podarcis hispanicus
Viviparous Lizard
Zootoca vivipara
Moroccan Rock Lizard
Scelarcis perspicillata
Ocellated Lizard
Timon lepidus
Iberian Emerald Lizard
Lacerta schreiberi
Large Psammodromus
Psammodromus algirus
How to help
The cyren's rock lizard is classified as endangered. Organizations such as UICN, WWF y Wildlife Conservation Society work specifically on its conservation and that of its habitat; looking into their programs is a good starting point if you want to get involved.
It's documented in 6 real protected areas — part of why protecting these places matters for its conservation.
Keep exploring
Based on what we already know about cyren's rock lizard.
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