We are a group of students, mainly undergraduate women, who are passionate about ecology and curious about the world around us! Our sponsors are Doug and Maria Eifler.
There is a large population in Topeka and Lawrence, but also in New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles! They are especially fascinating because they are so great at adapting to suburban and urban environments!
There are many fables about how Italian lizards arrived here in Lawrence but all we know for sure is that it's important that they are not transported anywhere else.
Research Focus
- We focused on habitat preferences (Friestad et al. 2023)
- We are planning offshoot projects on behavioral syndromes of successful invaders
- On the relationship between wall lizards and native skinks
Read the full paper — Friestad et al. 2023 →
That is why it is so important that you do not touch or transport these lizards anywhere. Questions? Contact the Italian Wall Lizard Task Force at [email protected].
The project was carried out through KU SEEDS Ecology Club and sponsored by Erell Institute.