Alligators in San Diego???

San Diego Alligator Lizard, Elgaria multicarinata webii, out enjoying the sun. The San Digo Alligator lizard is found along the San Diego region and then up through central inland California. While these little guys are normally active during the day, they may favor mornings, evenings and even nights during the hottest part of the year. Apparently, they are also able to swim, which, given those tiny legs, is not at all intuitive.

Trivia:

In Hawaii they have beautiful semi-precious olive crystals (yes, peridot!) in some of the lava formations and, on a few beaches, the sand is actually green with Olivine!

Lizards, in Hawaii, are considered good luck!

Will the Real Alligator Please Stand Up?

I saw an alligator lizard when I was in college. One of the girls caught it as a pet and we used to bring her bugs for it. She had named it "Baron." In any case, I'd remembered this beautiful lizard (albeit memory can be cloudy) and wanted to see another since. Thus, a while back I posted a fence post lizard, albeit a quite attractive fence post lizard, under the guise of an alligator lizard. I'm putting up this little guy as attonement (grin). Clearly, I need to get myself a reptiles of So. Cal. book. As I still have no herp book (seems like I have a little library going), I looked this guy up on californiaherps.com (awesome site) and, yes, this is the real alligator lizard. Actually, it is one of several species called "alligator lizard." This one is Elgaria webii, also known as the San Diego Alligator Lizard (go figure). If you want to bone up on alligator lizards, click here. I found him languishing on the bottom of my green waste recycle bin. I can only figure that the sneaky thing got caught up in some greenery and spent the week in the bottom the bin. I let him(?) loose in the front yard and I still see him occasionally scurry back and forth across the front patio. As for that lizard from college, our web site says it was the very attractive Elgaria multicarinata.