Cold Blooded Beast…

My garden is alive with fast moving and agile lizards. The species is called the wall lizard or Podarcis muralis. They hunt in the flower beds and many seem to live in a network of tunnels beneath my patio tiles. I have seen them catch flying ants but their staple diet seems to be insect larvae and worms. They live for up to seven years so I like to think that the ones I was watching this morning are the same individuals that I have been watching since I bought the house a few years ago. There are two that like to bask on my letterbox, soaking up the heat of the sun for hours on end.

Yesterday evening, I saw the larger lizard that lives in my garden. It is called the European green lizard or Lacerta viridis and is a much heftier beast. It is very shy but does emerge from the undergrowth when it thinks nobody is about. It is a somewhat fiercer hunter, consuming small wall lizards and baby mice as well as insects and other invertebrates. It also has a detachable tail that it can use as a defence against predators.

Lizards are cold blooded (ectothermic), reptiles. The first lizards appeared a little over 250 million years ago, in a time called the Permian Period. They are widely distributed, although they are more plentiful in warmer climes. They lay leathery eggs rather than giving birth to live young.

Neither of these species seems at all interested in the firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus) that absolutely infest the garden. I have not seen anything eating them, which may be because of their colouring. I am sure that they do have predators but I have not yet identified them. I have a lime tree at the corner of my house and this is the favourite food of the firebug, which probably accounts for their vast numbers.

Questions…

1. What is an endotherm?
2. Name a primary producer that lives in my garden.
3. What is the main difference between a bug (heteroptera) and a beetle (coleoptera)?
4. What is the chemical name for slaked lime?
5. Suggest a characteristic (other than leathery eggs) that all reptiles share.
6. Which geological period preceded the Permian?