Do we have a killer lizard?

I suspect what they saw was a 'ramarro' or western green lizard. Whilst I have been told they can give quite a nasty bite when provoked, I have never heard that they were deadly poisonous! Apparently they are found in various parts of Europe. http://www.herpfrance.com/reptile/western_green_lizard_lacerta_bilineata.php The article refers to France but we often saw an extremely green 'monster' of one in our garden in Le Marche.

yes,they're wonderful aren't they.i got bitten once after saving it from the mouth of our cat...but i'm still  here.. they eat a lot of unpleasant insects..they are getting more rare as they are easily victims of intensive agriculture and pollution but fortunately there are quite a lot around still in the marche.if you watch them you can notice that differently from the wall lizards these have articulated limbs and walk rather than slither..As ignorance is always free and abundant our builders used to kill them asserting they were dangerous/venomous etc but they are totally harmless.

"Ignorance is always free and abundant". Excellent. It's doubtless the same widely-available commodity that leads some here to swerve their cars to kill the harmless black snakes as they cross the road. (Well, harmless unless you're an insect or other lower lifeform...) In my nearly five years here living in very rural Abruzzo, I've only seen one of the large green lizards twice. I'm sure your friends were very serious, Maralyn, but that doesn't necessarily make them right. In fact, in this case they're completely wrong. Not that anyone is ever likely to be able to convince them of that... Al

Highly dangerous. The only real positive is that their presence normally signifies a large rat community which they do manage to achieve some sort of control over.

Capo Boi, I'd like to believe that when you say, "Highly dangerous," you're either employing irony or agreeing that ignorance is dangerous. However, I suspect you're actually asserting that Maralyn's friends are right to be fearful of the large green lizards one occasionally sees in Italy. If so, I'd be interested to know the source of your information. Nothing I've seen in reputable sources suggests they are dangerous to anything larger than mice. Al

I'm pleased about that, Capo Boi. I'd come to the conclusion from your previous posts that you were a sensible sort. Having looked into this issue a bit more, it seems that the scientific consensus used to be that only Helodermatid lizards were venemous. There are only a few species in this branch of the reptile family and they're all native to the New World. However, a few years ago research indicated that Iguana and Monitor lizards also produce venom, although the quantities involved and the weak delivery system means a bite from one of these is very unlikely to pose any real danger to humans (the usual caveats about individual hyper-sensitvity apply as usual with these things). Iguanas are also native to the New World and monitor lizards are native to Africa, Asia and Australia. Again, no suggestion in anything I've read that any native lizard you might come across in Italy poses any sort of danger to humans. Rather, it's clear that they play a role in reducing numbers of creatures that most of us would probably rather see less of. Therefore, the most rational approach is to just leave them alone to get on with pest control. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8331-lizards-poisonous-secret-is-revealed.html http://www.herpcenter.com/herp-awareness/6128-more-venomous-lizards-than-we-thought.html Al