Lizards and Snakes

KNOWN SPECIES

11,348

0.48% of our world's living things are lizards and snakes

CHARACTERISTICS

  • animals with a backbone (vertebrates)
  • they periodically shed their whole skin
  • their skin has scales
  • specially jointed skulls and jaws allow them to open their mouths very wide to swallow unusually large prey

 

SIZE RANGE

0.6 inch to more than 29 feet (1.5 centimeters to more than 9 meters)

WHERE THEY LIVE

  • on land
  • some in oceans and in fresh water

Here are just SOME of the world’s lizards and snakes:

Sticker about size

Komodo dragon
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Varanus komodoensis

Large plump reptile laying down

corn snake
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Pantherophis guttatus

orange striped snake

crocodile skink
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Tribolonotus gracilis

grey lizard with orange rings around eyes

king cobra
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Ophiophagus hannah

Black snake with head up

Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Uromastyx aegyptia

scaly creature laying down

northern redbelly snake
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Storeria occipitomaculata

Snake with blue and black back and orange belly

King's alligator lizard
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Elgaria kingii

Long, slender, black and gold reptile

eastern worm snake
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Carphophis amoenus

Pink snake that looks like worm

tusked chameleon
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Furcifer balteatus

Green lizard on a tree branch

Guess what? 

Several snakes are venomous, but most are harmless to humans.

View Another Group

True Bacteria
Protists
Green Plants
Fungi
Cnidarians

Mollusks
Arthropods
Echinoderms
Ray-Finned Fishes
Amphibians

Mammals
Turtles & Tortoises
Lizards & Snakes
Crocodilians & Birds

True Bacteria
Protists
Green Plants
Fungi
Cnidarians
Mollusks
Arthropods

Echinoderms
Ray-Finned Fishes
Amphibians
Mammals
Turtles & Tortoises
Lizards & Snakes
Crocodilians & Birds

BACK TO THE
TREE OF LIFE

Image credits

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Image Credits:

Corn snake, crocodile skink, eastern worm snake, northern redbelly snake, John White/© California Academy of Sciences; tusked chameleon, © California Academy of Sciences; Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard, © AMNH; king cobra, © Dr. Anand Titus and Geeta N. Pereira/CC BY-SA 2.0; King's alligator lizard, © AMNH; Komodo dragon, Gerald and Buff Corsi/© California Academy of Sciences.