
Psammodromus algirus
I've spent more than half an hour in observation of this two specimens, bellow a tree, 38ºC on the shadow. what appears to be copula, is just playing. Above a juvenil male, with the fading two blue marks behind the front legs. The female I think it was a juvenil too, due to its relative size, and also due the clear abdominal colors. The air temperature was that high, but above the quartitic rocks nearby temperature could easily rise above 50ºC at the surface of the rock, too hot to stand for a while. Therefore in the shadow every living beings were very lazy, enjoying the freshness of the trees and the high relative humidity and across the water stream. Butterflies, dragonflies, and most of the other insects were quietly holding up bellow. It was the first day I've record the behavior of certain species when facing this temperatures, and the reason why sometimes in high temperatures it seems there are no living beings above the sun, they are all in the shadow.
The Large Psammodromus is a species of lizard in the Lacertidae family. It is found in Algeria, France, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, and Tunisia.