Artificial egg-laying sites for lizards: A conservation strategy Original Research Article

This paper reports the development of a new technique that may help to increase the number of lizards in areas where scarcity of oviposition sites constitutes the major limiting factor. We have created artificial egg-laying sites for the endangered subspecies of lizard Podarcis hispanica atrata in the Columbretes archipelago. Our results demonstrate that such artificial sites were quickly accepted by the lizards as areas for basking and burrowing. Only one container was used for oviposition by one female, but the physical conditions in the artificial sites allowed successful development in 83% of the eggs which were experimentally placed in them. Additional studies will be required to improve this technique and to determine if it might be applicable to other lizard species.