Many people who travel to Europe are used to seeing lizards in southern cities but Dan had a shock when he sent a film clip in to Froglife of what he thought was a common lizard in Central London to be told that it was almost certainly a ‘non-native’ wall lizard. Dan was “amazed to see it, I couldn’t believe it. Earlier on that week when I walked past they were cleaning the building and later on in the week I saw the lizard.”
Conservation and Science Manager, Dr Andrew Smart commented, “It’s so great that Dan sent this in; the value of Citizen Science in establishing the location of lizard populations and recording when they first come out and bask is really valuable. In this case it looks like the animal is a wall lizard, normally found in the wild in Europe which will be an animal that has been released from captivity or that is the descendant of a released animal. Froglife confirmed a new population a couple of years ago following records sent in by a citizen scientist on our Dragon Finder App.
Froglife will arrange for someone to visit the site and try to determine if this is a single animal or part of a larger population. There are a lot of non-native reptiles and amphibians in the UK and it’s so helpful for Citizen Scientists to let us know when they come across them. Animals such as the wall lizard, midwife toad, alpine newt and various terrapins and freshwater turtles can be reported on our Dragon Finder App along with those important records of UK native reptile and amphibian species”
Thanks to Dan taking the time to send in his reptile record. We can get a better idea of where non-native species are appearing and help gather information on potential competitors or sources of disease that could impact our already hard-pressed UK reptile and amphibian species. It is illegal to release non-native animals into the wild and their random release can have an impact on our native species.
Remember to record any reptiles or amphibians you see out and about on the Dragon Finder App. All records from the app are sent to the National Biodiversity Network Atlas.
Potentially as early as January in the South East of England, and up to April in other areas of the UK, the common frog will emerge from their winter hideouts and head back to a pond. Male frogs will ‘piggy back’ on their chosen female using their nuptial pads to hold on tightly. This is a process known as ‘amplexus’. He will then fertilise her spawn as she lays it. Common frog eggs are laid in clumps, with up to 2,000 eggs laid in one single clump. Female frogs can lay up to 4,000 eggs over one breeding season.
Common toads will ritually return to the same pond for breeding each year where possible. They take advantage of warmer, damp spring evenings to leave their overwintering sites and return to their specific pond. This behaviour makes them notorious for crossing roads over night and putting themselves at risk of being run over. Our 
Once the warmer weather of spring hits, newts too will venture back to a suitable pond to breed and lay eggs. Males of each newt species will perform elaborate ‘dances’ to attract the attention of females, who will choose which male gets to fertilise their eggs. Newt eggs are laid in a very different way to toads and frogs. A female newt will lay each egg individually, she will lay the egg on the leaf of an aquatic plant and carefully fold the leaf around the egg to protect it, giving the leaf a very straight edge where it has been folded over. Newts lay less eggs than their toad and frog counterparts, but females will still lay hundreds over the season.