Abstrakt
Paper reports the finding of two individuals of Podarcis muralis (a male and a female) from the eastern Pyrenees showing blue body coloration. This is the first report of this phenotype in P. muralis (and in any continental population of Podarcis).
Article characterizes the unusual coloration of these individuals by comparing their reflectance spectra to those of lizards showing normal coloration. Blue coloration is common in some insular Podarcis populations, but is a rare phenomenon in the continent, and may result from a simple mutation causing a reduction in the concentration of pigments in the dermal xanthophores (i.e. axanthism), or from unusually high levels of dermal melanisation.