My sister and I were experts at catching Blue Belly Lizards. We'd visit my Nana in the summers and her house would have loads of lizards running around. There was one who was pretty docile, we would catch it multiples times a day, and it made us believe we were the best hunters ever... couldn't possibly be that when we caught the lizards we would feed them mealworms.
Fast forward a decade or three and come to find out, "Blue Belly Lizards" are actually called Western Fence Lizards and are frequently called “blue belly” lizards because of the bright blue patches on their abdomen and chin. During copulation the male becomes brilliantly blue, with blue patches even appearing on all of his dorsal scales.
Western fence lizards mating season is from mid to late March to June. The females lay eggs 2–4 weeks after mating, laying clutches of to 3 to 17 eggs in small holes dug into the ground. While young females may mate and only deposit a single clutch of eggs per season, older females may mate multiple times and deposit three or four clutches per season. The eggs hatch after about two months of incubation, from July to September, depending on the soil’s temperatures.
Hatchlings are about 1 inch long from snout to vent (where the tail connects to the body). Many lizard species can easily drop their tails, so scientists measure lizard body size excluding the tail. These lizards mature at about one year of age and can live an average of 5-7 years.
