Lizards
Georgia has 56 reptiles and 12 amphibians — the 2026 checklist
The Ilia State University paper splits species into biologically confirmed and candidate. This is not a list of new discoveries.
On 8 July 2026, Caucasiana published an annotated checklist of the amphibians and reptiles of Georgia. The authors are David Tarkhnishvili, Giorgi Iankoshvili, Armen Seropian, Nino Kachlishvili and Mariami Todua, at Ilia State University and the Caucasus Leibniz Biodiversity Research Center. The paper treats 12 amphibian and 56 reptile species as recorded from Georgia. That list is the backbone of this atlas’s herpetofauna layer.
What is the paper?
The checklist gives taxonomic remarks, specimen photographs and generalised distribution maps. Most taxa are represented by COI DNA barcodes from the Caucasus Barcoding of Life project (CaBOL), deposited in institutional collections and international databases. The abstract does not give an exact barcode total.
The authors explicitly distinguish biologically confirmed species — effectively isolated from their closest relatives — from candidate species whose status still needs validation, especially where contact zones and clinal variation remain poorly studied. The paper is open access under CC BY 4.0.
What does candidate mean?
Candidate here does not mean “almost confirmed”. Caucasian smooth newt (Lissotriton lantzi) is listed as a candidate: a geographically isolated lineage whose species status is not fully validated. Caucasian salamander (Mertensiella caucasica) is biologically confirmed; the authors do not treat Mertensiella djanaschvilii as a separate species.
Rock lizards in the genus Darevskia are not identified by colour. In the checklist, Derjugin’s lizard and mixed rock lizard are biologically confirmed; Ajarian rock lizard and Brauner’s rock lizard are candidates. On this atlas a candidate stays a candidate.
What changed in the names?
Some formally described taxa are no longer listed as separate species. The Georgian nose-horned viper is Vipera ammodytes in the paper, subspecies transcaucasiana; this atlas follows the same line. The authors treat Darevskia dryada as a geographic subspecies of Clark’s rock lizard.
Pond slider (Trachemys scripta) is an unintentionally introduced pet species of the last decade; the paper says reproducing populations exist near Tbilisi and Batumi. Lebanon lizard is also unintentionally introduced and known from a single location in Georgia. The 12 and 56 include these names; anecdotal or rejected names are not in those totals.
What does this mean for the atlas?
This paper is the checklist this atlas follows for amphibians and reptiles. Birds and mammals are not in it; do not mix those counts with 12 and 56. An empty locality, measurement or Red List field is better than an invented one. The lizards hub, snakes hub, turtles hub and amphibians hub remain the main record; news only adds context from this paper.
