The Lizards of Boston. 9-29-2019

Italian Wall Lizards have been popping up everywhere. Podarcis sicula, a member of the Lacertidae family, are native to central and southeastern Europe but they seem to be crazy adaptable and populations have been popping up all over the place, including in the US. Connecticut, Long Island, Central Park, NY, Pennsylvania... even Kansas has sustainable populations of these lizards. So does Boston, and it is likely the northern-most part of their "range".

We had heard about them for a few years, living in the public gardens that are almost in the shadow of Fenway Park. We'd been meaning to get our butts over to the gardens to look for them but never pulled the trigger. Luckily, our friend Jef leads a monthly Urban Nature Walk, planning nature expeditions in and around the city. When he announced a return to the gardens (they'd had a successful walk a couple of years ago), we eagerly joined the crew to see Boston's lizards.

We met up at about 10 AM on a sunny Sunday morning and couldn't have asked for better lizard weather. There was a lot of work going on in the gardens, including a digging in a large compost pile, presumably the very pile the lizards dig themselves into to survive the cold winters. We all went in and kept our eyes peeled. Andrea got a few shots of some insects while waiting for squamates to turn up.



I struck off on my own for a while, talking to people who tend gardens there, trying to gather as much info as I could. It seems they all had seen the lizards in various places throughout the gardens. I had no luck on my own. But I saw a large portion of the gang hanging out by one particular garden and I figured they might have encountered our target. They had! Andrea got this shot before I got there.

So, there we were. That was her lifer Italian Wall Lizard.

I had to train my eyes, but eventually, I got adjusted and could decipher their movement. They were a bit smaller than I'd expected... this spot only had youngsters flitting about. (That means they were born in Boston!) I finally got my camera on my own lifer.


There was a lot of action in this corner garden. The lizards are super fast so getting photos was not easy but it was a worthwhile challenge. We guess there was a half dozen or more specimens running about in this area. Here are the decent pictures I got. I'm sure the same lizards are featured more than once in this series of shots, but it was a delight to watch them and try for photos.










Massachusetts hasn't had a lizard species present since the 1860s when the last historic records of the 5-Lined Skink were noted. While I bet the skink will be back in Mass. before too long (what's this climate change shit the kids are talking about?), it's nice to wake up in my own bed and get up and go to look for lizards. How did the Wall Lizards get here? Released pets? I dunno... they are in the pet trade but that seems unlikely. My guess is that they arrived in some of the plants present in the gardens. They are formidable breeders and hopefully, they will survive the cold Boston winters. Though they are invasive, they pose no real threat to local fauna and are probably a tasty treat for the nearby hawks.

One of our crew saw one adult lizard but I only got photos of the small ones. Still, I'm very happy to have been a part of this day and I thank Jef and the whole group for letting us be a part of it. Here is the gang that I had the pleasure of lizard-watching with, Jef in front with the shades.