The Herpetological Journal

pp.87-93

Authors: Pedro Galán

Abstract: The attainment of sexual maturity by males and females of the lacertid lizard Podarcis bocagei was studied in a population from NW Spain (La Corufia province). Two methods were used. The first method involved capture, marking and recapture of marked hatchlings in a study plot. The second method examined the development of sexual organs through dissection of lizard samples from the same locality. Sexual maturity was attained at a minimum size (females: 44-45 mm; males: 46-51 mm snout-vent length), not a minimum age. Some individual and seasonal variation was observed in this minimum size, which decreased as the reproductive season progressed. Slightly fewer than half of the individuals from a given cohort (50.0%- 44.4% in males and 47.1%-44.4% in females, from samples of 1989 and 1990 cohorts respectively) attained the minimum size and reproduced towards the end of the next reproductive period (at 11-12 months of age). The mature yearling individuals were those that hatched from the first clutches of the preceding year, most of them in July. By their second autumn, all specimens from the previous year's cohort had exceeded the sexual maturity-threshold size