Lizards in our area

I live in Peachtree Corners, GA. We have several native lizards here, and I wanted to post some pictures and information about them. Many thanks to my son Aaron who is an expert at catching these fast animals, safely.

Carolina Anole, or Green Anole

These can be either green or brown, and like to crawl up a brick wall or along a metal fence. My son has kept one as a pet, feeding it mealworms and crickets. To me this has the classic ‘dinosaur’ look, like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park.

Here’s another view of the beast:

This one is in green mode.

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5-striped Skink

These also enjoy time sunning on bricks. Sometimes they show a vivid blue or purple iridescent shine. They are usually pretty fat looking.

They are known to shed their tail when frightened. I’ve seen this happen, many years ago, during an encounter with our house cat. And yes, the trick worked! The cat watched the loose tail thrash about madly, while the tail-less lizard crept away quietly and safely.

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Ground Skink or Little Brown Skink

We found this one frantically trying to get off our driveway, but their natural habitat is in leaf litter on the ground (which we have plenty of, right next to the driveway). This one is less commonly seen by us, probably because we don’t dig around in the leaves too much.

At first glance this might look like an amphibian, but look closer and you’ll see the scales.

That’s it for now, until we find another one.