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The Greek lizard fauna consists of 26 species from which 5 are monotypic and the other ones are represented by a total of 86 subspecies. Five species and 61 subspecies are endemic of Greece. A checklist including the geographical distribution of each taxon in the Greek region is presented.

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The author visited the Greek island of Crete at the end of April - beginning of May 1999. The island was suffering a heat wave, which was probably the reason that fewer reptiles were seen than expected. It was rather disconcerting to find an American Trachemys scripta elegans surface among the Mauremys rivulata in a pond near the town of Mochós. This introduction could have dangerous implications to the native species. It was also remarkable to find that the Greek are convinced that Chalcides o. ocellatus is very poisonous and that Telescopus fallax pallidus can even be deadly to humans. Other species that were found are: Lacerta trilineata polylepidota, Coluber gemonensis and Natrix tessellata tessellata; the amphibians Bufo viridis viridis, Hyla arborea kretensis, and many Rana cretensis. The fact all three amphibian species known from Crete were observed, in spite of the excessive heat, was surprising. The shell of a dead, partially decomposed Testudo marginata was discovered in an abandoned garden in Stalis; this species is not native to the island, and this is the first record of its occurrence on Crete.

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Lacerta pamphylica and Lacerta trilineata are two currently recognized green lizard species with a historically problematic taxonomy. In cases of tangled phylogenies, next‐generation sequencing and double‐digest restriction‐site‐associated DNA protocols can provide a wealth of genomic data and resolve difficult taxonomic issues. Here, we generated genome‐wide SNPs and mitochondrial sequences, and applied molecular species delimitation approaches to provide a stable taxonomy for the Aegean green lizards. Mitochondrial gene trees, genetic cluster delimitation and population structure analyses converged into recognizing the populations of (a) L. pamphylica, (b) east Aegean islands, Anatolia and Thrace (diplochondrodes lineage), (c) central Aegean islands (citrovittata), and (d) remaining Balkan populations and islands (trilineata), as separate clusters. Phylogenomic analyses revealed a split into two major clades, east and west of the Aegean Barrier, unambiguously showing a sister–clade relationship between pamphylica and diplochondrodes, rendering L. trilineata paraphyletic. Species delimitation models were tested in a Bayesian framework using the genomic SNPs: lumping all populations into a single ‘species’ had the lowest likelihood but the current taxonomy was also outperformed by all other models. All lines of evidence support the Pamphylian green lizard as a valid species; thus, east Aegean L. trilineata should also be considered a distinct species under the name Lacerta diplochondrodes. Finally, evidence from the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes is overwhelmingly in favour of recognizing the morphologically distinct Cycladian green lizards as a distinct species. We propose their elevation to full species under the name Lacerta citrovittata. All remaining insular and continental populations of the Balkan Peninsula represent the species L. trilineata.

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During a two weeks stay in the west of Crete (25. 09. - 09. 10. 1996) the following species were observed: Lacerta trilineata polylepidota, Podarcis erhardii, Hemidactylus turcicus, Coluber gemonensis, Mauremys caspica rivulata, Trachemys scripta elegans and Bufo Viridis.