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Posted by Lee on June 13, 2002 at 08:23:05:
In Reply to: You've heard of wall lizards? posted by Alan?:¬)Hyde on June 12, 2002 at 13:49:38:
Whilst native to Jersey the wall Lizard (Podarcis muralis) never reached mainland Britain. However, There are several feral populations breeding successfully in the country now. There is on famous one at a South London railway station, and another behind a supermarket (I think a Safeways) on the Isle of white. They seem one of the more succesfull introduced species and are breeding freely (populations are self supporting and, in the Isle of White, apparently spreading. As for Thamnophis, I remember my first snake was a large female generic garter snake from a local petshop. I had her for 2 years (I was like 6 at the time) and then she escaped. We had a large garden pond and several acres of woods and meadows and we saw that snake frequently every summer for 4 years (could never catch her). She was either seen terrorising frogs at the pond or basking on top of the neighbours compost heap (where I presume she hibernated). I suppose it would be possible for this species to colonise the U.K. but so far it hasn't happened. Terrapins, on the other hand, are relatively common, (I've seen 10 times as many Red eared sliders as I have sand lizards) but only adults. Our climate is unsuitable for them to reproduce and even if they did manage to produce a few young the temperature would be cool enough to limit them all to males, hence not a viable population. They do live an awful long time though so I expect to see them around for a while. Thanks for your interest, I'll keep regular updates going as I find out more.
Cheers, lee.