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RE: SUMMER ADVENTURES - Episode 18 - EUROPEAN WALL LIZARD
They eat insects---is it considered that they control pests, or do they eat indiscriminately and do as much harm as good? I just figured out muralis means wall. I guess lacerta means lizard?
It's a beautiful animal, but I don't think I'd like to find one in my kitchen. What do the cats think of it? Do they stalk, or is it too fast for them?
As usual, wonderul photos and a fascinating look into an aspect of nature with which I am unfamiliar (there's a lot of that!)
I think that in all those intricate relations in the food chain, these lizards are harmless or slightly beneficial to various plants by eating various small invertebrates, some of them pests and some not.
Hehe, cats hunt them, sometimes with some cats, the lizard gets killed, but most of them survive cat attacks by staying still until the cat loses the interest and the tough scaly skin protects them meanwhile. I saw them eat mostly flyes, ants and various wormlike things, worms, small centipeds or some larvae ... I don't think they do any harm, at least I didn't hear anything about that. To only real pest in this area is the big apartment houses building a business, this is like locusts, they buy terrain, build big ugly boxes with no green and barely a parking place, half of those apartments are sold to people that are dreaming & trying to make a lot of money in the very short tourist season and a half or more stay empty for decades, the building is low quality and in few years it shows ... the result - pseudo urban growth with no trace of some real development or long term benefit ... and pure architectural ugliness.
By pests, I meant plant pests, that destroy vegetation. I guess one critter's pest is another critter's friend.
I get you meaning about the development pests. When I was a child (long ago), I could see a field from my bedroom window and beyond that a grassy hill. Beautiful. Between the hill and field was a stream. Can you imagine?
But then one day large construction vehicles showed up. They dug out the side of the hill because it had gravel. Then more large vehicles came and in the distance these horrible structures grew...trailers! My hill became a trailer park. The field was still there, but you see I get your drift.
Sorry for those greedy pests who are scarring your community.