With its blue head and emerald green body, the green lizard is undoubtedly the most colorful reptile species in Central Europe. However, this is only true in spring and early summer during mating season.
Green lizards of the species Lacerta bilineata (the "Western" green lizard) and Lacerta viridis (the "European" green lizard) only show themselves in all their colorful splendor from around May to June.
For the rest of the year, the lizards are usually much less intensely colored and consequently much harder to spot, as their green color serves as excellent camouflage in the grass and bushes.
The change to the more colorful "wedding suit" takes place from around April to May, with the first molt after hibernation. The difference from the "normal" coloring is particularly pronounced in the males, whose face and throat often appear bright blue or turquoise during mating season.
The females also change color, although a little less noticeably. However, there are great differences in the coloring and color changes of green lizards, both regionally and within the same population. In the case of females in particular, it is difficult to determine in the wild which patterns and colors are due to individual or regional variations rather than due to the season.
To know exactly what the change in color looks like from autumn to mating season in spring, one would have to observe the same individual during different periods of the year, and that's precisely what I did. Last fall I photographed a male and a female western green lizard, and I was lucky enough to be able to track them down again in June of this year (green lizards are territorial and can often be found in the exact same places; in addition, each animal has an individual scale pattern on its face, which enables clear identification).
These two individuals offer a perfect case study which allows me to demonstrate how exactly their color changes. So here's the comparison between September 2023 and June 2024:
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