49 Fun Facts About Lizard

Roughly how many species of lizard have scientists described so far?

About 8,000 lizards were on the Reptile Database's list by 2026, nearly twice the number of snakes, and the total keeps climbing because some 200 new reptile species are described every year.

What is the largest living lizard?

Komodo dragon: males can top three metres, and the serrated edges of its teeth are tipped with iron, an orange coating that keeps them sharp enough to slice through a deer.

The world's largest lizard is native to islands in which country?

Indonesia: the lizards survive on a handful of its Lesser Sunda islands, where hatchlings climb straight into the trees and roll in dung so that the cannibal adults leave them alone.

Which animal, far heavier than itself, is among the prey of the world's largest lizard?

Water buffalo, deer and wild pigs are all on its menu: the lizard lies in wait beside a game trail, slashes with serrated teeth, and its venom keeps the wound bleeding.

The world's largest lizard tracks carrion from kilometres away using which body part?

Its forked tongue, not its nostrils, does the smelling: it samples the air and carries the scent to an organ in the roof of the mouth, while the lizard swings its head from side to side as it walks.

A 1926 hunt for the world's largest lizard inspired which film?

King Kong: producer Merian Cooper read his friend Douglas Burden's account of hunting giant lizards on a remote island, and at first planned a film in which a gorilla fought them.

Flora, a giant lizard at Chester Zoo, made headlines for laying viable eggs despite what?

Never having met a male did not stop Flora laying 11 eggs in 2006, and they were due to hatch around Christmas, which the zoo's curator said would suit a virgin birth nicely.

Male anoles display to rivals and mates by fanning out a colourful throat flap called what?

A dewlap is usually a different colour from the rest of the anole, so it catches the eye from a distance, and the male flashes it open and shut while bobbing his head up and down.

The Gila monster is the only venomous lizard native to which country?

The United States: it lives in the deserts of the Southwest, takes its name from Arizona's Gila River, and spends most of its life underground, since a few big meals may feed it for a year.

Exenatide, a drug copied from a hormone in Gila monster venom, is prescribed for which condition?

Type 2 diabetes: a doctor testing venoms in 1990 found a Gila monster hormone that prompts the pancreas to release insulin, and a synthetic copy of it went on sale as Byetta in 2005.

Where does a Gila monster store the fat that lets it live on a few large meals a year?

In its tail: a Gila monster can swallow a third of its own weight in eggs and nestlings at one sitting, then live off the fat in its plump tail through the months it spends in a burrow.

On the standard explanation, the millions of tiny hairs on a gecko's feet grip walls using which force?

Van der Waals forces are faint attractions between molecules, but a gecko's foot has so many hair tips touching the wall that they add up to hold its weight with no glue, though one 2014 study credits static charge instead.

Blue-tongued skinks stick out their vivid tongues mainly to do what?

Scare off predators: a cornered skink turns to face the threat, gapes and pushes out a broad blue tongue against a bright pink mouth, a bluff that it backs up by hissing and flattening its body.

Unlike most lizards, geckos are noted for doing what when courting or defending territory?

Vocalising: geckos chirp, click and bark at mates and rivals, and the word 'gecko' itself comes from a Malay name that is said to imitate one species' call.

How do most geckos, which lack eyelids, keep their eyes clean?

They lick them: with no lids to blink, each eye sits behind a clear, fixed scale, and the gecko wipes dust and grit off it with its long tongue.

The largest living gecko, Rhacodactylus leachianus, comes from which Pacific territory?

New Caledonia: its giant gecko is a case of island gigantism, and the islands probably once held an even bigger one, about 60 cm long, known only from a stuffed specimen found in a French museum basement.

More chameleon species live on which island than anywhere else on Earth?

Madagascar holds at least half of all chameleon species, including the world's smallest, and several are now critically endangered as their forest is logged and burned for farmland.

How far can a chameleon shoot its tongue, compared with its body?

Twice its length, and a little more in the smallest species, which outshoot the big ones; the tip is a ball of muscle that forms a suction cup as it hits the insect and hauls it back.

The word 'chameleon' comes from Greek words meaning what?

Ground lion: the Greek name joins khamai, 'on the ground', and leon, 'lion', perhaps because the crest on some species' heads reminded people of a lion's mane.

The common basilisk's nickname 'Jesus Christ lizard' refers to its ability to do what?

Run across water: fringed hind toes spread on the surface and each hard slap traps a pocket of air that holds the lizard up for a few metres, and when it finally sinks it simply swims on.

The basilisk lizard's name comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Little king: the Greek basiliskos was a legendary serpent, said by Pliny to wear a crown-like crest on its head, and the lizard was given the name in turn because of the crest on its own.

Horned lizards defend themselves against dogs and cats by squirting what from near their eyes?

A stream of blood: the lizard dams the flow leaving its head until tiny vessels round the eyelids burst, and the jet tastes foul to dogs and coyotes, though birds of prey seem not to mind it.

The horned lizard's diet is built mostly around which insects?

Harvester ants make up most of its meals, so where pesticides and invading fire ants have wiped out the ant colonies, the lizards have disappeared too.

The Texas horned lizard, nicknamed the 'horned frog', gives its name to which university's sports teams?

Texas Christian University has fielded Horned Frogs since the 1890s, although the state reptile on its seal is a lizard, called a frog or toad only because of its squat, round body.

How does the thorny devil, a spiny desert lizard, get most of its drinking water?

Through channels in its skin: grooves between the scales soak up dew and the moisture in damp sand and wick it by capillary action to the corners of the mouth, so the lizard can drink through its feet.

What does the thorny devil carry on the back of its neck to fool predators?

A false head: when threatened, the thorny devil tucks its real head between its front legs, leaving a predator to snap at the spiny knob of soft tissue on the back of its neck instead.

The thorny devil's scientific name, Moloch horridus, borrows 'Moloch' from what?

An ancient Near Eastern god, pictured as a hideous beast and linked in the Bible to child sacrifice, lent his name in 1841 to a lizard that is in fact a slow, harmless ant-eater no longer than a man's hand.

The marine iguana, the only lizard that forages in the sea, lives only on which islands?

The Galápagos: their ancestors are thought to have drifted there from South America on rafts of debris, and Charles Darwin, meeting them on the lava, called them 'most disgusting, clumsy Lizards'.

How do marine iguanas get rid of the salt they swallow while grazing on algae?

Sneezing it out: glands by the nostrils filter salt from the blood, and each snort sprays a brine that dries into the white crust the iguanas wear on their heads like a wig.

During El Niño food shortages, marine iguanas have been shown to do what?

Shrink in body length by up to 20%: connective tissue can account for only about half of that, so even their bones are thought to shorten, and the iguanas grow back once the algae return.

The parietal or 'third' eye on top of an iguana's head can do what?

Detect light and movement is all it can do, since it has only a rudimentary retina and lens, but that is enough to catch the shadow of a hawk passing overhead.

In January 2008, cold nights in Florida caused invasive green iguanas to do what?

Drop from trees: the cold put the iguanas into a torpor in which they lost their grip on the branches, but many were only stunned and woke up again once the day had warmed.

The frilled lizard snaps open its famous neck frill mainly to do what?

Look bigger to predators: the frill flares like an umbrella while the lizard gapes and hisses, and if the bluff fails it turns and sprints away upright on its hind legs.

Besides the tropical north of its home continent, the frilled lizard is also native to where?

Southern New Guinea: its frilled lizards are close genetic kin of those on the continent, and may have walked across when ice-age seas were low enough to leave a land bridge.

Gliding lizards of the genus Draco form their 'wings' from skin stretched over what?

Enlarged ribs swing outwards to spread a flap of skin on each side into a wing; the lizard turns head-down on a trunk, leaps and glides to the next tree, but never takes off in rain or wind.

The slow worm, a legless lizard, can do what that no snake can?

Blink its eyes: a slow worm has movable eyelids, while a snake's are fused into a clear cap over each eye, so a snake cannot even shut its eyes to sleep.

The oldest slow worm on record, a legless lizard, lived in captivity for how long?

54 years is the record usually quoted, and since even wild slow worms can reach about 30, this slug-eater that spends most of its life hidden under cover may be the longest-lived lizard of all.

Lizards of cold climates tend to breed in which way?

Bearing live young: a mother who keeps her eggs inside her can carry them into the sun and out of the cold, and the aptly named viviparous lizard lives farther north than any other land reptile.

The all-female populations of which lizards reproduce without males?

Whiptails: several species in the American Southwest and Mexico have no males at all, each mother's eggs hatching into her daughters, yet the females still court and mount one another before laying.

What is the term for a lizard deliberately shedding its tail to escape a predator?

Autotomy, from Greek words for 'self' and 'severing': the tail snaps at a ready-made weak spot and keeps writhing on the ground, holding the predator's eye while its owner gets away.

For many lizards, what decides whether an egg hatches as male or female?

The incubation temperature tips the balance: cooler nests tend to hatch females and warmer ones males, and in bearded dragons a very hot nest can turn chromosomal males into egg-laying females.

Bearded dragons, popular pets of the genus Pogona, are native to which country?

Australia: the 'beard' is a spiny throat pouch that the lizard puffs out and turns black to bluff an enemy, while a smaller dragon answers a rival's head-bobbing with a slow wave of one arm to give way.

The tuatara of New Zealand looks like a lizard but belongs to which separate order?

Rhynchocephalia was once the dominant group of small reptiles and the tuatara is all that is left of it; one male, Henry, became a father at a New Zealand museum at the age of about 111.

How does the way most lizards shed their skin differ from a snake's moult?

It comes off in pieces: a snake crawls out of its old skin in one long sleeve, but most lizards peel in large flakes, with the alligator lizards a rare group that can slip theirs off whole.

On most lizards, the round patch of thin skin in a hollow on each side of the head is what?

The eardrum: lizards have no outer ear flap, so the membrane sits in a small opening at the surface, and many rely on it for early warning, bolting at the slightest sound.

About how long is a full-grown Jaragua dwarf gecko, one of the smallest lizards known?

About 16 mm from snout to tail base, small enough to curl up on a coin; it was named in 2001 after Yvonne Arias, whose campaigning won protection for the Dominican forest where it lives.

The oldest fossils that are undisputedly lizards come from the middle of which geological period?

Jurassic rocks from the middle of the period hold the earliest sure lizards, found across Europe, Asia and North Africa, while older Triassic candidates such as Megachirella are still argued over.

Roughly how many separate times have lizards evolved a legless or nearly legless body?

About 25 times: skinks, slow worms, flap-footed lizards and others each lost their legs on their own, and snakes are simply the most famous and species-rich branch to have gone the same way.

Some anoles escape predators by staying underwater for many minutes, breathing from what?

A bubble on the snout: the lizard breathes out, the air clings to its skin and is breathed back in again and again, a trick that keeps some stream-dwelling species under for as long as 18 minutes.