There are more than 760,000 Balearic lizards, or Podarcis lilfordi in the Cabrera Archipelago and according to Ana Pérez Cembranos and Valentín Pérez Mellado from the Department of Animal Biology at Salamanca University, 355,000 of them are on the larger island of Gran Cabrera.
Cembranos and Mellado have carried out the largest sampling of the species ever in 16 areas of the Archipelago. Their comprehensive study confirmed that the species is in an excellent state of conservation on the larger islands of Cabrera Gran and Conillera.
The Podarcis lilfordi study was also one of the presentations of the III Jornada d’Investigació a Cabrera which was held online on Thursday.
Project
The first sampling of the lizard was done in 2018 and Cembranos and Mellado followed on from that last summer and expanded the study.
The Balearic lizard is omnivorous and oviparous and can grow to 22 centimetres long.
The Balearic lizard population is in good condition in the Cabrera Archipelago, but it’s on the international list of critically endangered or vulnerable species.