Common Lizard – help with identification

August 24th 2009

Common Lizards

Males: speckled back and orange belly also penial bulge below

Females: dots on back arranged in a dark line and creamy belly

Juveniles: about 4cm long, are almost black but soon become bronze.

Young: born during August and you can differentiate males and females by the following summer.

Lizards v Snakes

Lizards have eyelids and rigid jaws unlike snakes.
Lizards have live young, they do not lay eggs.
Lizards have sensory tongues which, like snakes, are slightly forked.
Lizards shed their tails as a defence mechanism so never catch them by the tail, they grow back it is always obvious.
Lizards slough their skin but only in tiny bits not like snakes which shed their skin in one piece.

Report a Sighting

Recent Sightings

Adder

single female sunning herself on Little Assynt All-Abilities Path (DAH) (01/07)

Common Blue damselfly

20+ along one stretch of Little Assynt All-Abilities Path (DAH) (01/07)

Common Darter dragonfly

6+ along one stretch of Little Assynt All-Abilities Path (DAH) (01/07)

Common Dolphin

16+ animals off Raffin (DAH/Charlotte Newell) (29/06)

Arctic Skua

two pale morph birds off Stoer Head Lighthouse (DAH) (29/06)

Black-throated Diver

single adult bird, Loch na Bruthaich (DAH). This is a non-breeding loch for this species so it will have flown here from its breeding loch for a bit of RnR! (29/06)