Common Lizard

The whole day spent on the slopes of Roseberry, piling in fencing posts. Hard work. The old ones had rotted through. Being in one place means that nature often comes to you. The flyby of a sand martin, a distance cuckoo, the first of the year and peacock butterflies, also a first. And a common lizard disturbed in the dead bracken, fresh from its hibernation and busy feasting on ants. Quite elusive, the common lizard is actually the UK’s most common reptile. Most lizards lay eggs like snakes but the common lizard gives birth to live young, a reproductive pattern known as viviparity which gives rise to its scientific name Zootoca vivipara. The genus name Zootoca is Greek and the species name vivipara is Latin, both mean “live birth” however it is from the Latin that we get the common lizard’s alternative English name of viviparous lizard.