A Hardy Nothern Lizard

Still cold. About +7, sunny, but easterly wind, however as a bit weaker.

I went out. I was riding around more than an hour around three km, I think. To keep myself warm enough I was trying to find sunny places off and on. There are still quite many snowy spots in more shadowy places, I discovered to my surprise. Here and there, in quite many places, were fallen pine branches, because of the hard winds of the past few days, I suppose.

I saw a couple of butterflies, small tortoiseshells, and the first coltsfoots. When I was trying to capture one of the butterflies with the camera, I discovered with a big luck this lizard in the picture. It run very fast under the leaves, but came up stopping just for a moment for me to quickly photograph it. Then it disappeared into a rock hole. Amazing, I have never seen a lizard here in Helsinki, although I've lived here almost 50 years, seen it only in the country. It's very cute, and nimble.

We have only one lizard species in Finland, the small viviparous lizard, a common lizard (Zootoca vivipara). It lives farther north than any other lizard species and is found all over Finland, but it's common in southern and central parts where it can be seen nearly anywhere. The species is protected here in finland. It hibernates during the winter, and survives a short time in a few degrees below zero, may survive even if some of its body fluids then freeze.

A viviparous lizard drops its tail when threatened. If the beast grabs the lizard by the tail, the lizard can detach its tail, which will remain on the ground to shake by itself and confuse the beast. In this way, the lizard itself gets a chance to escape. The tail later grows back, however not as good as the original one. Even if the tail grows back, the lizard stores reserve food in its tail in case of a bad day and hibernation, so losing the tail causes the lizard to lose this store as well. Similarly, growing a new tail is a task that requires resources for the lizard. So, you shouldn't grab the lizard by the tail, or deliberately scare the lizard into detaching its tail in some other way.

I was very delighted to see the cutie, for I've often said aloud that it's so shame I don't see them here.