Cool Facts - Lizards
Cool Facts - Lizards
2. Some lizards have no legs and might be mistaken for snakes. But you can always tell a lizard because they have eyelids and ear openings and snakes don’t.
3. Like other reptiles, lizards lay eggs, have scales and a tough outer skin and are ectothermic or ‘cold-blooded’.
4. While many species lay their eggs and abandon them, skinks and glass lizards stay with the eggs until they hatch, guarding them from predators.
5. The Slender Glass Lizard is the longest; it looks like a snake because it doesn’t have legs.
6. The largest is the Collared Lizard which can grow to 14 inches.
7. The smallest is the Ground Skink - a newly hatched baby will fit on a dime!
8. A lizard can release a part of all of his tail when he is grabbed by a predator. Once the tail is broken off, he runs for shelter and is safe; he leaves his squirming tail to confuse or distract the enemy. His tail has special muscles that constrict at a break point and prevent blood loss. Eventually the lizard grows a new tail, but it isn’t a colorful or as elegant as the original. It may take three or four months for the ‘new’ tail to grow. Sometimes the tail doesn’t break off cleanly and the lizard looks as if he has two tails!
9. The lizards generally eat insects (grasshoppers, ants, crickets and beetles) and spiders. They are valuable as a natural control of destructive species like termites. One species of lizard, the Eastern Collared Lizard, even eats other lizards.
10. Like snakes, lizards smell by ‘tasting’ the air. When lizards flutter the underside of their throats, they are
smelling by moving air past a specialized organ called the Jacobson’s organ.
11. Lizards NEVER stop growing. They shed in little pieces when they outgrow their skin, not all at once like snakes. They also replace their teeth throughout their lives.
12. Texas Horned Lizards, also called Horned Toads, defend themselves by puffing up and ejecting a small amount of blood from the inner corner of each eye to confuse predators. Interesting, they only do this when caught by a mammal.
13. Collared Lizards run on their hind legs like T-Rex. When startled, they rear up and run on two legs.
14. Bearded dragons are a type of ancient lizard, originally from the deserts of central Australia. “Bearded” refers to a flap of skin under the chin they extend when disturbed. They are usually even-tempered, and seem to tolerate human interaction.
15. The eastern glass lizards are legless, superficially resembling snakes (the generic name Ophisaurus means “snake lizard”), but they are easily identified as lizards by the presence of external ear openings, moveable eyelids, small scales (rather than large, transverse scutes) on the belly, and a distinct groove or fold along the lower side of the body. A popular myth maintains that if this “snake” is cut into pieces, the pieces will reunite, hence the local name “joint snake.”
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