Amphibian & Reptile Identification
YOU MUST IDENTIFY THE SPECIES IN ORDER TO DETERMINE THE APPROPRIATE DIET AND CARE. YOU WILL KILL THE ANIMAL BY PROVIDING THE WRONG FOOD OR ENVIRONMENT!
No Legs = Caecilian (looks like a snake but smooth without scales) feed like Salamander
With Legs & Tail = Salamander or Newt
With Legs, No Tail = Frog or Toad
Smooth moist skin with no warts = Frog
Rougher dry skin with warts = Toad
REPTILES: Hard and scaly, sometimes smooth with small scales
Eyes and Nostrils on top of Head, Elongated Jaws = Crocodiles, Alligators, Caimans.Carnivores, feed meat (canned chicken). Offer large water container with rocks.
All other reptiles are Squamates (over 7,000 species)
COMMON LIZARDS:
Agamids: Includes Dragons, Uromastyx, and others with well-developed limbs & long tails, and often bizarre forms with crest, dewlaps and expandable appendages. Males often brightly colored.
Chameleons: Eyes bulge from the sides of their head and move independently, toes are fused into “mittens”, can change color.
Geckos: Widely spread toes, able to climb any surface. Most are petite, slender-bodied lizards that have a broad, flat head, can produce sounds
Iguanas: well developed limbs and short tongues that barely protrude. Most have long tails, crests, and dewlaps. Males are bright and colorful.
Monitors: have well developed limbs and long whiplike tail, elongated body, with a long head and pointed snout. The jaws are very powerful.
Skinks: have elongated circular bodies, little necks with small pointed heads. Legs are short, even absent, and their tails vary, generally colorful.
Tegus: some are limbless, but most have well developed limbs, long tails, large plate like heads, and extensible forked tongue.
LESS COMMON LIZARDS:
Alligator lizards have elongated bodies and long tails. Limbs are very slight or gone. Moveable eyelids betray them as lizards instead of snakes. They have either a notched or forked tongue. Carnivores (insects, meat).
Basilisks, Helmet lizards, or Collared Lizards slender lizards with well developed long limbs, a helmet-like head crest, a sail-like erectable crest down their back. Carnivores (insects, meat).
Burrowing lizards legless, are wormlike with eye and ear openings that are covered with skin, and they burrow. Carnivores (insects, meat).
Crocodile lizards bony scales running along back and tail, giving it a crocodile-like appearance though it is much smaller than actual crocodiles, only reaching 16 - 18 inches. Carnivores (insects, meat).
Girdled lizards have flattened heads and bodies with enlarged rectangular scales, arranged in regular rows around the body like girdles, and they are typically spiny. Carnivores (insects, meat).
Night Lizards have fused eyelids and short tongues that do not protrude. Omnivores (insects and some vegetables).
Plated lizards are variable in form. Some species have four fully developed limbs while others have very reduced remnants of hind limbs. Omnivores (insects, some fruits and vegetables).
Typical Lizards (Wall lizards, True lizards, Lacertas, Lacertid Lizards, Old World Runners) have a collar of large scales on the underside of the neck, slender elongated bodies with a narrow neck, a long extendable tongue that is deeply forked, a long slender tail, and thin toes. Insectivores.
Venomous lizards Gila Monsters and Beaded Lizards They have a stout body with a broad head, well developed limbs, a short fat tail. Carnivores (insects and meat).
