There is a variety of lizards in the garden, and they are very welcome. They eat all kinds of bugs, but they REALLY love to eat cockroaches!

When I clear overgrown patches in the garden, stirring up the ground and mulch, lizards will gather within a few feet of the area I'm working. As the ground is disturbed, garden roaches run out, and the lizards dart forward to grab them, then retreat to the sidelines with their catch.

Lizards shed their skin like a snake, exposing a fresh new skin underneath.

This lizard was drinking drops of water from the leaf.

A young brown lizard.

Shhhhh - we can't see this one - he's hiding!

Though they chomp all kinds of bugs, I've only once been attacked by a garden lizard myself.

After one of the hurricanes of 2004 I went into the garden to do some clean up and found that a brown lizard had taken shelter from the storm in a plastic bucket that was laying on it's side. Instead of just picking up the bucket and dumping the lizard out, I thought I would spare him any further stress, and put my hand in the bucket to come up behind him and gently shoo him out.

He wasn't having anything to do with that! He managed to ride out a hurricane in that bucket, and he just wasn't sure he was ready to leave yet. He actually lunged at my hand and bit me! (It didn't hurt, it just startled me.)

I figured he had been through a stressful situation, so I didn't hold any hard feelings.