By Calvin Jones

The common lizard, Ireland’s only reptile, can often be seen sunning itself on dry stone walls, rocks or logs during the summer months. These animals occupy a range of habitats, including woodland, marshes, heath, moors, bogs, sand-dunes and even rubbish dumps.

Lizards are active, alert and extremely quick. Their colouration helps them to blend with their surroundings, and they can disappear into a crevice or under a stone with startling speed at the first sign of disturbance.

Common lizards are usually between 10cm and 16cm (4 inches and 6 inches) long, although larger specimens can reach 18cm (7 inches). They have long bodies, short legs and a long, tapering tail. The coarse, dry scales on the lizard’s back can be a variety of colours including grey, brown, copper or green, with a black stripe running down the centre of the back, and a scattering of black spots over the body. Male lizards have orange-yellow bellies with black spots, while females have creamy white bellies usually without spots.

Reptiles, unlike birds and mammals, have no internal temperature regulation system. They rely on the characteristics of their environment and on their patterns of behaviour to control their internal temperature. When they are too cold they bask in the sun, if they get too warm they move into the shade.

Lizards can typically be found basking on sunny days in the morning or the afternoon, but not generally during the middle of the day, when they are in danger of overheating. After cooling overnight, a lizard needs to increase its body temperature to somewhere in the region of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) before it can hunt effectively. They eat insects, spiders, slugs, snails and earthworms: pouncing on their prey and stunning it by shaking before swallowing it whole.

Because they rely on the sun’s heat to remain active, lizards are forced to hibernate through the Irish winter. They disappear around October and hibernate until the following March, often in groups, occasionally emerging during warmer spells.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own