This page is the warm sand under the basking lamp. Move your pointer and your lizard will scuttle after you. Choose a different one at the bottom, and tap the notes to open them.
When it is alarmed or showing off, it puffs out the spiny skin of its throat, which can turn jet black.
It lifts a front leg and circles it slowly in the air. It seems to mean: I see you, and I am no threat.
Males bob their heads up and down quickly to show who is in charge.
A tiny light-sensing spot on top of its head detects shadows, such as a bird passing overhead.
It spreads its ribs to make itself as flat and wide as a pancake, to soak up more heat.
Most are calm, rarely bite and will sit on a shoulder. It is the most popular pet lizard in Britain.
The basking spot
Move your pointer onto the basking spot and wait for your pet to arrive.
Meet them all
Lizard · from the deserts of Australia
A stocky, sandy-coloured lizard with a broad triangular head, rows of soft spikes along its sides and a spiny throat.
Lizard · from Pakistan, Afghanistan and north-west India
A plump yellow gecko spotted with black, with a fat, banded tail and large eyes.
Lizard · from New Caledonia, in the Pacific
An orange-brown gecko with a fringe of soft spikes running from above each eye down its back, like eyelashes.
Lizard · from Australia and New Guinea
A heavy, smooth, sausage-shaped lizard with short legs, dark bands across its back and a bright blue tongue.
Lizard · from Yemen and Saudi Arabia
A green lizard with a tall casque on its head, bulging eyes that move separately, feet like tongs and a tail that curls into a coil.
Lizard · from Central and South America
A big green lizard with a row of spines down its back, a flap of skin under its chin and a long, banded, whip-like tail.
Good to know
A lizard moves between warm and cool places to set its own temperature. Its home needs both.
Most lizards need a special ultraviolet lamp to make vitamin D. Without it their bones go soft.
Many eat live insects, which have to be kept and fed as well.
Reptiles can carry salmonella. Always wash your hands after touching one or its home.
Many lizards live ten or twenty years. Some outlive the family dog.
Buy animals bred in captivity, never taken from the wild.
Reptiles and amphibians: 1 more group
Real photos of the pets on this page. Tap one to see it bigger.
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons and are used under free licences. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews. Open a photo to see who took it.
A reptile cannot warm itself as we do. Its heat, its light and even its weather all have to come from its keeper, every day for many years.
Back to the topOther kinds of pet live on their own pages: choose another.