Student Research Paper Lizards
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The smallest lizards belongs to the skink and gecko families. The brown skink is only 3 inches long. The largest lizard is the Komodo dragon. It grows greater than ten feet long.
Habitat
Lizards cannot live in extreme cold or heat. The are most common in warm regions in the world such as the oceanic islands of the temperate and tropic regions. The United States has about 70 species of lizards.
Food
Lizards eat many different kinds of food. Most eat live prey. A few are vegetarians. Some eat seeds. The desert iguana eats insects when it is young and is a vegetarian as an adult.
Young
Most lizards lay eggs with a tough, leathery shell. They lay the eggs in sand or rotting vegetation. Some lizards lay only one egg. Most lay several eggs at a time. Most mother lizards abandon their eggs. A few species help guard the eggs and incubate the eggs. Some lizards are live bearers.
Behavior
Most lizards run on all four legs, but some run on their back legs. Others move like a snake. They can hide from other animals by camouflage, speed, and secretiveness.
Most lizards lose their tails when touched. The broken tail twists and wiggles. The tail gets the attention of the predator so the lizard can escape. A new tail grows back.
Two poisonous kinds of lizards live in our world. They are the Gila monster of the southwestern United States and the beaded lizard. The Gila monster is a "threatened" animal. It rarely bites people and is in far more danger from people than people are from it.