Average Animals Trivia: Once a Lizard... | 10 Questions

Answer: Sauria and Lacertilia

The lizards belong to the suborder Lacertilia. Members of the Lacertilia suborder can be classified as either Iguania, Gekkota, Amphisbaenia or Autarchoglossa.

The term "Sauria" was coined in the early 19th century by scientists James Macartney and Alexandre Brongniart to originally describe an order of reptiles containing lizards and crocodilians. Eventually the term "Sauria" evolved to become a synonym for the taxonomic name Lacertilia.

Answer: ice sheets

Lizards can live in deserts, temperate forests, rainforests, prairies, marshes, streams, subterranean burrows or rocky outcrops. Most lizards live on the ground or in trees. The only places that don't serve as habitats for lizards are strictly aquatic or aerial environments and polar regions containing ice sheets, such as the continent Antarctica.

Answer: Snakes can hear noises through their ears while lizards don't hear at all

Snakes have no external ears and hear only through vibrations from the ground using their skull bone. Lizards hear sounds using their ears.

Answer: eating its food

Lizards use their sense of vision for several functions because many species of lizard have strongly tuned and highly acute color vision. When communicating, lizards use specific postures, gestures, scale colors and movements to define their territory, resolve any disputes and entice mates. Lizards also use their sense of vision to find any potential food to eat or detect movements from any predators. But a lizard doesn't use its vision to eat its food.

Answer: no

Most species of lizards reproduce by placing eggs in a nest or burrow. Other species of lizards, such as the mangrove monitor and the green tree monitor, give birth after hatching eggs inside their bodies. Other lizard species, such as the blue tongued skink and the Solomon Island skink, give birth to live young.

Answer: tail

The lizard tail is usually a different color than its body to encourage potential predators to strike for the tail first. The lizard sheds all or part of their tails through a process called autotomy or self amputation. This process is used by the lizard to evade a predator's grasp or to confuse the predator, and allows the lizard to flee from danger.

After shedding its tail, the lizard usually regenerates its tail over a period of weeks.

Answer: tongue and vomeronasal organ

The lizard uses its tongue as its initial olfactory or smell organ by applying the tongue to the object it is trying to smell. The vomeronasal organ, also known as the Jacobson's organ, is used by the lizard as a detector of any olfactory stimuli or smell.

Answer: hematophagous

Most species have insectivorous diets consisting of insects and spiders. Some species of the Sceloporus genus are omnivorous while some lizards of the genera Sauromalus, Dipsaurus or Ctenosaura are herbivorous. No known species of lizards exhibit hematophagous diets consisting of blood.

Answer: Lizards have tails while salamanders don't have tails

Both lizards and salamanders have a primal tetrapod body. Both animals can have reduced or absent limbs giving them an eel-like appearance. Both animals also have slender bodies and long tails.

Answer: no

The king dwarf gecko, Lygodactylus rex, is a species of dwarf gecko native to Malawi and Mozambique in southeast Africa. The King dwarf gecko is the only recorded species in the suborder of Lacertilia with the term "king" in its common name. Thus there is no species of lizard known as the "king lizard".