Oriental Garden Lizard

Oriental Garden Lizard teaches Signal Shift: hiding is useful until being noticed becomes the point, and breeding males can turn themselves into a far more conspicuous territorial signal.

• Long tapering tail making up much of the total body length
• Raised crest of pointed scales along the neck and front of the back
• Rough overlapping body scales
• Colour varies from brown and grey through olive and yellowish tones
• Breeding males can develop striking red, orange or dark coloration around the head and throat
• Strong limbs and long toes suited to climbing shrubs, fences and trees

Primarily active by day. At night they become inactive and sleep on vegetation, branches or other elevated positions where approaching ground predators are less likely to reach them unnoticed.

Habitat: Native range keys: south_asia, southeast_asia. Oriental Garden Lizards occupy scrub, woodland edges, gardens, plantations, open vegetation and urban green space. Their ability to use both natural vegetation and human-modified habitat is central to their enormous geographic success.

Native range: Native range keys: south_asia, southeast_asia. Oriental Garden Lizards occupy scrub, woodland edges, gardens, plantations, open vegetation and urban green space. Their ability to use both natural vegetation and human-modified habitat is central to their enormous geographic success.

Mostly insects and other small animals, including ants, beetles, grasshoppers, dragonflies and other arthropods, with occasional small vertebrate prey and some plant material recorded. It commonly hunts visually from a perch before making a short rapid attack.

Primarily active by day. At night they become inactive and sleep on vegetation, branches or other elevated positions where approaching ground predators are less likely to reach them unnoticed.

A single dependable lifespan figure is difficult to apply across the species' enormous geographic range, so AnimalDex avoids presenting a falsely precise wild lifespan.

Females lay clutches of eggs in soil. The eggs develop without parental guarding, so the female's investment is concentrated in choosing and preparing a suitable laying site rather than caring for hatchlings afterward.

Breeding males are usually the more conspicuous sex, developing stronger head and throat coloration and displaying territorially. Females are generally less dramatically coloured and do not perform the same male territorial display.

Rarity: Relatively common · 12/100. AnimalDex canonical rarity score: 12/100, maintained by the live indexed species profile.

• Observe from a respectful distance and avoid changing the animal's behavior.
• Do not block feeding, shelter, nesting, or travel routes.
• Use a live camera capture without handling or staging wildlife.