The SIBE Lalla Chafia is a Quaternary Plateau flat land based on carboniferous shales whose flora is composed essentially of very extensive Steppe with Stipa tenacissima interpenetrating with cereal crops and the Tetraclinaria (Tetraclinis articulata) which is not very extensive (survey No. 2).

This biotope, which seems monotonous, actually contains a fairly large number of Reptiles, especially from a quantitative point of view. The small Lacertidae are kings: no less than 7 species have been observed in syntopy (i.e. in close cohabitation) in Lalla Chafia, which is probably, for this family, a record for all of North Africa, or even for the whole world. The importance of this site in terms of herpetofauna is reinforced by the existence of several taxa specific to the Algerian Highlands or to the east of the Maghreb and several of which find their western limit of distribution here: Saurodactylus mauritanicus mauritanicus mauritanicus, Psammodromus mauritanicus mauritanicus, Psammodromus nolli, Psammodromus algirus nolli, Psammodromus blanci, Ophisops occidentalis, Eumeces algeriensis meridionalis, Chalcides ocellatus tiligugu, Trogonophis wiegmanni, Trogonophis wiegmanni, Eryx jaculus, Malpolon monspessulanus.

Note that this arid steppe is the domain of several species with Saharan affinities such as Stenodactylus sthenodactylus, Trapelus mutabilis, Uromastyx acanthinurus and Acanthodactylus boskianus.