Endangered
La Gomera giant lizard
Gallotia bravoana
The La Gomera giant lizard is a lacertid (wall lizard) species that can be found on the island of La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands.
Appearance
It is easily distinguishable from any other member of Gallotia by the intense white colour that covers its neck, chest and area around the mouth, in spectacular contrast to its dark brown back.
Range and habitat
The La Gomera giant lizard is a lacertid (wall lizard) species that can be found on the island of La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands.
To ensure the survival of the remaining populations and facilitate eventual reintroductions, the feral cat population around the species' range will need to be controlled.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
This lizard is generally diurnal and mostly herbivorous, and grows up to half a metre long (head and body long).
In crisis
Its population trend has actually been increasing since 2001. The species was originally described from subfossil remains in 1985, presumably having gone extinct by then. The biologists found only six living individuals.
The current population of the La Gomera giant lizard consists of (2004) 90 individuals remaining in the wild, and a captive stock of about 44 animals. The La Gomera Giant Lizard is listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List.
La Gomera giant lizard is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on La Gomera giant lizard, Wikidata item Q2309290. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
