You are here » home › advanced search › Mesalina rubropunctata

Mesalina rubropunctata (LICHTENSTEIN, 1823)

iNaturalist logo

Can you confirm these amateur observations of Mesalina rubropunctata?

Add your own observation of
Mesalina rubropunctata »

Find more photos by Google images search: Google images

Higher TaxaLacertidae, Eremiadinae, Sauria, Lacertoidea, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Red-spotted Lizard 
SynonymLacerta rubropunctata LICHTENSTEIN 1823: 100
Scapteira nebulosa GRAY 1838: 281
Mesalina lichtensteini GRAY 1838: 282
Eremias rubropunctata — DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1839: 297
Mesalina rubropunctata — GRAY 1845
Eremias rubropunctata — LOVERIDGE 1936: 62
Eremias rubropunctata — BONS 1959
Eremias rubropunctata — PAPENFUSS 1969: 276
Eremias rubropunctata — JOHANN 1981
Mesalina rubropunctata — SZCZERBAK 1989
Mesalina rubropunctata — BAHA EL DIN 1992
Mesalina rubropunctata — SCHLEICH, KÄSTLE & KABISCH 1996: 425
Mesalina rubropunctata — IBRAHIM 2008 
DistributionMorocco,Western Sahara, Algeria, S Tunisia ?, Libya, Egypt, W Sinai, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad ?, Sudan (Jumhūriyyat)

Type locality: “Aegypt. et Nubia”.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesSyntypes: ZMB 1115, 1116 (Egypt) etc. 
DiagnosisDiagnosis (genus): Head shields normal; occipital shield usually present; lower nasal in contact with first supralabial only; nostril between 3 nasals and widely separated from supralabials; sometimes 2 or more transparent shields in lower eyelid; abdominal plates in parallel longitudinal rows [Hosseinian Yousefkhani et al. 2015] 
CommentType species: Mesalina lichtensteini GRAY 1838 (= Lacerta rubropunctata LICHTENSTEIN 1823) is the type species of the genus Mesalina GRAY 1838.

Reference images: see Uetz et al. 2024 for high-resolution reference images for this species. 
EtymologyNamed after Latin ruber, red, ruddy, painted red + Latin punctata, punctuated; pointed. [“…capite trunco pedibus et cauda supra griseis cum maculis magnis subrotundis ferrugineo-fuscis extra ordines dispositis…”] 
References
  • Angel, M.F. 1932. Sur Quelques Reptiles et Batraciens du Sahara. Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat, Paris (Ser. 2) 4 (4): 385-387 - get paper here
  • Baha El Din, S M 1992. Notes on the herpetology of north Sinai. British Herpetological Society Bulletin (41): 9-11
  • Baha el Din, S. 2006. A guide to the reptiles and amphibians of Egypt. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo. xvi + 359 pp.
  • Bauer, Aaron M.; Jonathan C. DeBoer , Dylan J. Taylor 2017. Atlas of the Reptiles of Libya. Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. 64 (8): 155-318 - get paper here
  • Bauer, Aaron M.;Günther, Rainer 1995. An annotated type catalogue of the lacertids (Reptilia: Lacertidae) in the Zoological Museum, Berlin. Mitt. Zool. Mus. Berlin 71 (1): 37-62 - get paper here
  • Bischoff, W. 2004. Mesalina rubropunctata (Lichtenstein, 1823) – Hammada-Wüstenrenner Die Eidechse 15(3): 91-93. - get paper here
  • Bons, J. 1959. Les lacertiliens du sud-ouest Marocain; systematique, repartition geographique, ethologie, ecologie. Instit. Sci. Cherifien, Rabat, Trav. (Ser. Zool.) no. 18 130 pp.
  • Duméril, A. M. C. and G. Bibron. 1839. Erpétologie Générale on Histoire Naturelle Complète des Reptiles. Vol. 5. Roret/Fain et Thunot, Paris, 871 pp. - get paper here
  • Geniez, P.; Mateo, J.A.; Geniez, M. & Pether, J. 2004. The amphibians and reptiles of the Western Sahara (former Spanish Sahara) and adjacent regions. Edition Chimaira, Frankfurt, 228 pp. [reviewed in Reptilia GB 44: 81]
  • Hosseinian-Yousefkhani, Seyyed Saeed; Gabriel M.D. Marmol Marin, Nasrullah Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar Rastegar-Pouyani 2015. A Bibliographic Recompilation of the Genus Mesalina Gray, 1838 (Sauria: Lacertidae) with a Key to the Species. Russ. J. Herpetol. 22 (1): 23-34 - get paper here
  • Ibrahim, Adel A. 2008. Contribution to the herpetology of southern Libya. Acta Herpetologica 3 (1): 35-49
  • Joger, U. & Mayer, W. 2002. A new species of Mesalina (Reptilia: Lacertidae) from Abd al-Kuri, Socotra Archipelago, Yemen, and a preliminary molecular phylogeny for the genus Mesalina. Fauna of Arabia 19: 497-505
  • Johann, H. 1981. Herpetologische Eindrücke auf einer Reise durch die Sahara. Herpetofauna 3 (13): 17-21 - get paper here
  • Kapli, P., Lymberakis, P., Crochet, P.-A., Geniez, P., Brito, J. C., Almutairi, M., Ahmadzadeh, F., Schmitz, A., Wilms, T., Pouyani, N. R., Poulakakis, N. 2014. Historical biogeography of the lacertid lizard Mesalina in North Africa and the Middle East. Journal of Biogeography, doi: 10.1111/jbi.12420 - get paper here
  • Lichtenstein, H. 1823. Verzeichniss der Doubletten des zoologischen Museums der Königl. Universität zu Berlin nebst Beschreibung vieler bisher unbekannter Arten von Säugethieren, Vögeln, Amphibien und Fischen. Königl. Preuss. Akad. Wiss./ T. Trautwein, Berlin. x, 118 pages - get paper here
  • Loveridge, A. 1936. African reptiles and amphibians in the Field Museum of Natural History. Zool. Ser. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Chicago, 22 (1): 1-122 - get paper here
  • Martínez del Mármol, Gabriel; D. James Harris, Philippe Geniez, Philip de Pous, and Daniele Salvi 2019. Amphibians and Reptiles of Morocco. Edition Chimaira, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 478 pp - get paper here
  • Milto, Konstantin D. 2017. New Records of Reptiles on the Red Sea Coast, Egypt, with Notes on Zoogeography. Russ. J. Herpetol. 24 (1): 11-21 - get paper here
  • Milto, Konstantin D.; Samy A. Saber, Abdullah M. Nagy, Roman A. Nazarov, Daniel A. Melnikov, Natalia B. Ananjeva 2019. First Report on the Reptile Diversity of Wadi El Gemal National Park, Eastern Desert, Egypt. Russ. J. Herpetol. 26 (3): 175-184 - get paper here
  • Padial, J. M. 2006. COMMENTED DISTRIBUTIONAL LIST OF THE REPTILES OF MAURITANIA (WEST AFRICA). Graellsia, 62(2): 159-178 - get paper here
  • Papenfuss, T. J. 1969. Preliminary analysis of the reptiles of arid central West Africa. Wasmann Journal of Biology 27:249—325 - get paper here
  • Rouag R, Ziane N, De Sousa M 2024. A tentative list of reptilian fauna of Algeria and their conservation status. Biodiversity Data Journal 12: e120471 - get paper here
  • Schleich, H.H., Kästle,W., Kabisch, K. 1996. Amphibians and Reptiles of North Africa. Koeltz, Koenigstein, 627 pp.
  • Schnurrenberger, Hans 1963. Fishes, amphibians, and reptiles of two Libyan oases. Herpetologica 18 (4): 270-273 - get paper here
  • Shcherbak, N.N. [= Szczerbak] 1975. Katalog afrikanskikh Jaszczurok [Catalog of African sand lizards [Eremiainae]]. Akad. Sci. Ukrain. SSR, Zool. Inst., Zool. Mus.: 2-83
  • Simó-Riudalbas, M., Tamar, K., Šmíd, J., Mitsi, P., Sindaco, R., Chirio, L., & Carranza, S. 2019. Biogeography of Mesalina (Reptilia: Lacertidae), with special emphasis on the Mesalina adramitana group from Arabia and the Socotra Archipelago. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution - get paper here
  • Sindaco, R. & Jeremcenko, V.K. 2008. The reptiles of the Western Palearctic. Edizioni Belvedere, Latina (Italy), 579 pp. - get paper here
  • Spawls, Stephen; Tomáš Mazuch & Abubakr Mohammad 2023. Handbook of Amphibians and Reptiles of North-east Africa. Bloomsbury, 640 pp. - get paper here
  • Szczerbak, Nikolai N. 1989. Catalogue of the African Sand lizards (Reptilia: Sauria: Eremiainae: Lampreremias, Pseuderemias, Taenieremias, Mesalina, Meroles). Herpetozoa 1 (3/4): 119-132. - get paper here
  • Trape, J.F.; Trape, S. & Chirio, L. 2012. Lézards, crocodiles et tortues d'Afrique occidentale et du Sahara. IRD Orstom, 503 pp. - get paper here
  • Uetz, P.H.; Patel, M.; Gbadamosi, Z.; Nguyen, A.; Shoope, S. 2024. A Reference Database of Reptile Images. Taxonomy 4: 723–732 - get paper here
  • Werner, Y.L. & Ashkenazi, S. 2010. Notes on some Egyptian Lacertidae, including a new subspecies of Mesalina, involving the Seligmann effect. Turkish Journal of Zoology 34: 123-133 - get paper here
 
External links  
Is it interesting? Share with others:


Please submit feedback about this entry to the curator