Abstract
Photographic identification is a promising marking technique alternative
to the toe-clipping, but is time consuming, particularly when a large number of
individuals is involved. For this reason several authors had frequently preferred the
toe-clipping. In this study we analysed the black spot pattern of ventral scales of wall
lizards (Podarcis muralis) and we showed that photographic identification is an effective
method for recognizing individuals, and the error of this technique is much less
than that of the toe-clipping arising from natural toe loss. Moreover, the numerically
encoding of the black spot pattern may radically reduce the time needed to compare
the pictures of large samples of individuals, solving one of the more important obstacle
against the use of photographic identification.
