Lizard - unsurpassed master of camouflage in nature

Lizard - an unsurpassed master of disguise, a brisk reptile, with its scaly appearance resembling a small copy of the animals of the ancient world. Modern individuals with an average life expectancy of 3-5 years, mostly small in size - from 10 to 40 cm. The largest representative - a pearl lizard - just under a meter in length.

Description

A distinctive feature of modern lizards are mobile eyelids, oblong torso, medium sized paws and a long tail. Desert inhabitants are endowed with long fingers with lateral denticles, which make it easy to move along the sand, without falling into the depths.

Lizards are voiceless. An exception are some species that live in the Canary Islands and publish in times of danger squeak.

It feeds on a lizard green with invertebrates: grasshoppers, butterflies, locusts, spiders, snails, slugs, worms. Lunch of large individuals can be snakes, small rodents or laying birds. To the prey lizards quietly creep, trying not to scare away, and then sharply attacked and caught it with their mouths. Also, lizards like to eat some fruits of plants: cherries, cherries, kalina, grapes.

Reproduction occurs several times a season, in large specimens - once a year. For the lady of the heart, the males are fiercely fighting, accompanied by bloodshed. The female lays eggs (in small representatives of them from 2 to 4, in large ones - up to 18 pieces), which hides in burrows or digs into the soil. Cubs appear in the world in 3-6 weeks, and immediately begin to live independently.

Adaptability to natural conditions

The lizard is characterized by the tenacity of fingers with claws on the movable legs, which provides high speed while moving and dexterity when climbing trees and shrubs to a height of several meters. Coloring, optimally adapted to the natural environment, is an effective camouflage in the event of an imminent danger. This allows you to almost merge with the outside world. Most often the lizard is green. Also there are gray and brown individuals, endowed with bright spots (blue, red, azure, yellow) on the throat, abdomen and sides. The lizard in the desert is distinguished by the yellow color of the body, imitating the sand texture.

Enough of her enemies. These are storks, snakes, crows, kingfishers, hoopoes, small falcons. Therefore, to protect the lizard - an unsurpassed master of disguise - uses a variety of methods: it's fast running with sudden unpredictable turns, fading, burrowing into the sand.

The unique property is getting rid of the tail

The aforementioned methods of saving one's own life with an approaching danger are supplemented by such a unique property of the lizard as getting rid of your own tail, or rather, from its part.

With a possible hit in the enemy's malicious embrace, in the claws of the latter, at best, there will be a wriggling segment of the tail section, confusing it. A brisk animal has long dived into the nearest loophole, leaving the ill-wishers, as they say, with a nose. Some species of lizards can only part with the tail at a young age, completely losing this ability over time.

The lizard's tail is the spine, which consists of several zones, interconnected by cartilages, muscles and ligaments. Each site is capable of tearing painlessly, therefore, with the danger that arises, dropping the reptile's tail occurs spontaneously as a result of a strong muscular spasm.

By the way, it is very difficult to tear off a tail from a dead lizard, and with a successful attempt, the rupture turns out to be lacerated, with protruding beams of muscles - not the same as that of a living reptile.

The experiments carried out show that if a headless lizard deprived of the brain is grabbed by the tip of the tail, then it will throw it off with the same ease as in ordinary life. Autotomy is also observed in such representatives of the flora as spider-haymaking, crayfish, echinoderms.

At the site of the rupture from the loss of the tail, a film is formed, which prevents bleeding. Almost immediately, there is a restoration of the cartilaginous stem, which is overgrown with new scaly skin and muscles without restoration of the vertebrae. True, the new tail is not so mobile and in size is an order of magnitude shorter than the old one. The growth of the lost part occurs in lizards in the period from a month to a year (depending on the size of the animal).

Effects

Without a tail, the so-called helm, the lizard, an unsurpassed master of disguise, loses its agility, agility, quickness, and ability to reproduce. Water lizards are deprived of the ability to swim, which forces them to change their way of life.

The tail is a kind of energy accumulator, accumulating fats and nutrients. Therefore, after its loss, the lizard - an unsurpassed master of disguise - can simply die. Often a reptile that has managed to escape, finds its tail and eats it in order to restore lost strength.

It is rare to find a lizard with two tails in the forest. This can be explained by the fact that in one unfavorable moment she was in the teeth of a predator, leaving a small piece of her body to memory. After a while, in place of the lost part, a new segment will grow with the almost complete old tail left.