Madeira - Banana lizards

More Madeiran Wall Lizards enjoying some banana peel left on a wall at a viewpoint.  This lot were very exciting, and one of them bit me!

They seemed to be VERY used to people and looked as if they had developed an association between people and food, certainly those that had left the banana peel there seemed to have done so for the lizards and there were loads of them on this one wall, it seemed to be a bit of a tourist attraction too!  You could get very close to them, and in fact they would approach you!  Hence how I ended up being bitten, I put my hand in front of my camera because I thought one was going to jump onto my lens and it decided to have a go at my finger.  It didn't break the skin or anything, I actually thought it was quite funny though I did wash my hands with some antibacterial handwash afterwards.  Another one started "chasing" a lady who was wearing sandals who was hopping around with this little lizard running at her.  Though I wasn't at all impressed when the woman started stamping at the lizard.  Don't like it, get back in the car you stupid woman!

I don't know how much they have been getting fed by people, but there were certainly a good number of lizards there and it  was here that I saw the largest wall lizards!  I never really considered before that wild lizards would start associating people with food, I know pet reptiles will make this association but I never really expected wild reptiles to do this, but this has certainly changed my view! 

There was quite a bit of fighting going on between them too, which was fascinating to watch as they arched their backs at each other.  If you look at the lizards in some of the photos, they are missing toes probably as a result of this fighting.