Catalan: Lludrió ibèric
Portuguese: Cobra-de-pernas-de-cinco-dedos
Scientific: Chalcides bedriagai (Boscá 1880)

This is a small non climbing lizard that has smooth, shiny scales and short limbs. Their colour is a shiny bronze / brown to olive green with tiny dark ringed yellow spots. The underside is paler. The body of an adult can reach up to 8.5cm with an overall length of 17cm including the tail.

The Bedriaga’s skink is endemic to the Iberian peninsular and can be found throughout Portugal and most of Spain with the exception of the extreme north. They can occur in a variety of habitats including woods, clearings, rocky and grassy areas although they prefer to live in open sandy places with low plants or sparse vegetation where they can quickly burrow into the sand. Although they are diurnal creatures they are very secretive and so difficult to see as they choose to bask under cover where they can better regulate their temperature.

Bedriaga’s skinks are carnivorous with their diet being made up of a wide variety of invertebrates, including beetles, bugs, slugs, woodlice and spiders. They in turn are prey to a range of snakes (Horse-shoe whip snake / Southern smooth snake), birds (Little Owl / Shrike) and mammals (Hedgehog / Wild boar).

The females, which are larger than the males, may mate with several partners and will give birth to live young after around 11 weeks of gestation. The babies are 5.5 to 6cm long and of a uniform colour.

Where the soil is heavy clay, which makes it difficult to burrow, they make use of old tree roots that have already established channels into the ground.

Both of these images were taken in western Andalucía.

There are differences in this species within Iberia;
Chalcides bedriagai subspecies bedriagai from eastern Spain have a rounded body section.
Chalcides bedriagai subspecies cobosi are found in southern Portugal, Andalucia and Murcia (the ear opening being smaller than the nostril and they have shorter forelegs)

Chalcides (bedriagai) pistaciae is in the mountain ranges of Portugal and throughout western Spain, this has longer forelegs that can reach as far as the ear and the body section is more squared. It may be treated as a separate species.

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