Something in the rockery

[Hyacinth]

Yesterday I was grubbing out a rockery and saw.......a lizard? :o Only about 3/4" long, thin, grey/brown colour. What the heck ???

[Hyacinth]

[silly billy]

Got to be a Common/Viviparous Lizard.

[Robert_Brenchley]

How fast did it run? It sounds like a juvenile common lizard, but it was very small.

[Hyacinth]

well, someone's said that it was a juvenile newt - would that be right? Only newts I've seen (apart from the Friday night sort :P) were in Italy years ago when we took some frogs spawn, I thought, from a pond. But those newts were horrible things with long thin spindly legs. This little chappie's legs were in proportion to his little body. Did he run fast? Well, he didn't have very far to move to get under the rock, but nifty enough for a little 'un..this friend said that we're in the wrong part of the country for lizards (he said that there were 2 sorts in England?) - so spect it was a newt. Gotta re-think newts, then. This was a lovely little thing.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Newt is what I was thinking. It's the right time of year for juvenile amphibians, and what you describe is the right size for this year's newt crop. The most immediately obvious difference is that lizards run very much faster than newts, which are generally a bit slow on their feet. Common lizards are found all over England, but I've yet to see one round Birmingham.