We see a lot of lizards, but it’s news when we see an alligator lizard. I found this one Sunday while pulling weeds in a damp area of the yard. He’s twisted up here in the bottom of a bucket getting ready to spring to freedom.
Check out the regenerated tail. These lizards can drop their tails when threatened and scamper away from danger leaving the tail behind to wriggle around and occupy the would-be threat. The tail then grows back, but as you can see here, looks a bit different from the original.
I looked back in my lizard file and saw this alligator my son caught two years ago and kept in a lizard habitat for a couple of days. You can see here how long their tails really are.
Another of the alligators we’ve seen. I think this is maybe a teenage alligator lizard.
Mostly we see fence lizards like this one I saw yesterday.
And I had to put up this fence lizard from the files. As you might gather from comparing the photos above — alligator lizards have notoriously bad dispositions and are prone to bite while sleepy-eyed fence lizards tend to be more placid. In fact, the guy or gal above looks a little like Elmo.
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