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The final part of a series of papers on the lizards of the Caucasus, that have been published in previous years. The paper reports on the life habits, capture and keeping in terraria of several lizards of Soviet Transcaucasia. In these respects the agamid Phrynocephalus helioscopus persi- cus and three species of the lacertid genus Eremias occuring in that area (i. e. strauchi, velox, pleskei) are discussed. Finally a !ist of all lizard species and subspecies actually known to occur in this region is given.

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The structure and evolution of a satellite DNA family was examined in lizards from the genus Darevskia(family Lacertidae). Comparison of tandem units of repeated DNA (satDNA), CLsat, in all species from the genus Darevskiahas shown that their variability is largely explained by single-nucleotide substitutions, which form about 50 diagnostic positions underlying classification of the family into three subfamilies. Maximum differences between the subfamilies reached 25%. At this level of tandem unit divergence in the subfamilies, no cross-hybridization between them was observed (at 65°C). The individual variability within one subfamily within the species was on average 5% while the variability between species consensuses within a subfamily was 10%. The presence of highly conserved regions in all monomers and some features of their organization show that satellites of all Darevskia species belong to one satDNA family. The organization of unit sequences of satellites CLsat and Agi160 also detected by us in another lizard genus, Lacerta s. str. was compared. Similarity that was found between these satellites suggests their relatedness and common origin. A possible pathway of evolution of these two satDNA families is proposed. The distribution and content of CLsat repeat subfamilies in all species of the genus was examined by Southern hybridization. Seven species had mainly CLsatI (83 to 96%); three species, approximately equal amounts of CLsatI and CLsatIII (the admixture of CLsatII was 2–5%); and five species, a combination of all three subfamilies in highly varying proportions. Based on these results as well as on zoogeographic views on the taxonomy and phylogeny of the Darevskia species, hypotheses on the evolution of molecular-genetic relationships within this genus are advanced.

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After a brief description of Georgia’s landscape the author reports on the lizards of the family Lacertidae that were found during a herpetological trip in May 2012. In addition, a list of the recorded herpetological taxa is presented.

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The taxonomic categories such as population and subspecies were studied on the example of three Caucasian lizard species of genus Darevskia - D. praticola, D. derjugini, and D. rudis by comparing the morphological data and results inferred from nuclear DNA markers. RAPD and new inter-MIR-PCR (IM-PCR) methods were used. The IM-PCR was used to characterize the lacertid DNA fragments located between dispersed SINE type repeats which occurred to be ortologous to mammalian repeats of the same type. It was shown that separation of the Northern population of D. derjugini (subspecies silvatica) is supported by the comparison with two Southern populations (derjugini and barani). The latter ones, in their turn, are very similar and hardly can be considered as good subspecies by the genetic distance. The subspecific division of D. praticola (praticola and pontica) also requires more specification. For example, several populations from North Caucasus (ssp. praticola) occurred to be heterogeneous. The level of differences between ssp. praticola and pontica is of the same order as in some of the praticola populations. Low level of molecular differences between two subspecies of D. rudis (obscura and bischoffi) does not confirm their validity as a full subspecies.