Steve Hadley snapped a photo of this two-tailed lizard on the screen outside his house, in Connerton in Land O’ Lakes. According to AnoleAnnals.org, two-tailed (or occasionally even three-tailed) lizards are not all that uncommon. Most lizards can lose their tails and regrow a new one. The middle of each vertebra in the tail is a zone of weakness (or breakage plane), pre-made to easily fracture. When this happens, the signal goes out, and new tail construction begins. Occasionally it doesn’t quite work; the tail is only partially broken, and doesn’t come off, but enough is broken that new tail growth begins. New tails do not regrow the original vertebrae made of bone. Rather, they grow as one long, cartilaginous rod, according to the website. So, one can easily tell the new tail from the old one.
Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964
