The UK's lovely lizards
You can find three species of lizard in the wild in the UK.
Each is really amazing in its own way.
Common lizard
Like all reptiles, common lizards lay eggs. But these hatch inside mum’s body so she appears to give birth to live young!
Common lizards are one of the lizard species that can make their tails fall off if they need to escape from the jaws of a predator.
You can see common lizards across much of the UK, especially around coastal areas. Lizards are cold-blooded so will often bask on rocks, logs or sand in the mornings to warm up.
Slow worm
This is a lizard with no legs! You might think it should be a snake or worm (hence the misnomer) but it’s not. One way of telling is because, like all lizards, it has eyelids – which snakes and worms don’t.
Slow worms prefer to hide under logs or compost heaps than bask in the open. Don’t try to pick one up – it will wriggle and twirl to make itself difficult to grab and probably poo all over you!
Like common lizards, you can find slow worms right across the UK and WWT’s wetland centres and reserves. We even put out metal sheets for them to hide and warm up under.
Sand lizard
This is the UK’s rarest lizard. It's found mainly on heaths in Dorset, Surrey and Lancashire, but conservationists are working hard to extend its range.
These are our brightest coloured lizards. They have dapples and stripes and can have brown, yellow, cream and black colours across their bodies. In springtime the males change colour to a wonderful garish green to attract females - the one in the picture is a male who's green flanks are fading away in summer.
How do I know it’s not a newt?
Newts spend some of their time in water while lizards often like dry sandy habitat. But lizards also live in wetlands while newts can wander a long way from water, so habitat isn't always a clue. You'll have to look closely at the animal itself.
Lizards are reptiles with scales and can move very fast. Smooth newts especially can look quite like common lizards, but they don’t have scales. Newts have smooth or warty skin instead and can only walk slowly. So if it ran away, it was a lizard! Smooth newts can be light or dark - here's a light one to get a feel for how they look:
Lizard watching tip
Rather than trying to get close and risk scaring a lizard, if you have binoculars then move further away and get a great close-up look in its eye through your bins.
If undisturbed, they’ll often stay very still for quite a while. This can give you a chance to set up a tripod several metres away and zoom in for some great photos.
