Last meal: food composition of road-killed Lacerta viridis (Reptilia: Lacertidae) from Romania

Natural Diet of European Green Lizards, Lacerta viridis (Squamata: Lacertidae): A Comparison of Macroscopic and Molecular Identification Methods

“…Our results confirmed that the most frequent prey of L. viridis were Coleoptera, which corresponds to the findings of other authors for this species (Korso ´s 1984; Maier et al 2020) and to the diets of other large European lacertids (Castilla et al 1991;Angelici et al 1997;Sagonas et al 2015). Whether coleopterans are preferred prey or the most profitable prey for lacertids remains to be investigated.…”

“…Additionally, the precision of the identification of prey remnants using the macroscopic approach varies across several taxonomic levels, from species to phylum. Although Korso ´s (1984) was able to identify some remnants to family level and Ho ´dar et al (1996) was able to identify some to species, most frequently, identification remains at order level (Korso ´s 1984;Ho ´dar et al 1996;Angelici et al 1997;Mollov et al 2012;Crovetto and Salvidio 2013;Maier et al 2020;Santamarı a et al 2020). Obviously, molecular identification provides much higher precision in taxonomic identification if DNA information on the prey is available.…”

“…The species appears to be an euryphagous generalist predator (sensu Pekár and Toft 2015). Arthropods, such as Araneae, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, and Orthoptera, appear to be their primary prey (Korsós 1984; Maier et al 2020). Due to its large body size, the lizard can occasionally even catch small vertebrates, including other lacertids and conspecifics (Nettmann and Rykena 1984; Leu and Petrovan 2022), which is also typical for other taxonomically related species (Angelici et al 1997; Rugiero et al 2021).…”

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“…The road through IGNP may be a useful focus for other studies which examine the carcasses of road-killed animals. Such uses of road-killed vertebrates' carcasses have been mentioned recently in studies concerning feeding ecology, parasites, morphology and age structure (e. g. McAllister et al 2016;Kolenda et al 2019a,b;Vafae Eslahi et al 2017;Ile et al 2020;Maier et al 2020). The road could also be used as a source of samples in the case of invertebrates, including rare species, such as E. carpathicus.…”

Habitat preferences of European green lizard Lacerta viridis (Laurenti 1768) in a protected area, Romania

“…Coniferous plantations are utilised by reptile species in early successional stages, but not in mature plantations, with well-developed canopy cover (Jofré et al, 2016). Strong shading, as in pine plantations, has a negative effect on invertebrates' diversity and abundance (Cremene et al, 2005;Corfey et al, 2018;Cifuentes-Croquevielle et al, 2020) and invertebrates represents the food of this species (Mollov et al, 2012;Maier et al, 2020). We show that the green lizard abundance is low in tall grass without any structural elements (trees, shrubs).…”