Living in South Florida, we get a variety of lizards visiting our backyard, but today was the first that I noticed a Brown Basilisk Lizard. This one is a male since only the males have crests. Basilisk comes from the Greek, meaning "Little King." This lizard is sometimes called the "Jesus Christ Lizard" because of its ability to walk or run on top of bodies of water. It is not native to Florida. They usually live in Mexico, Central America, and in the northern part of Columbia, but they are showing up in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas, probably due to someone releasing their pets into the wild. It was quite a surprise to look up and see him sitting on the limb of one of our live oak trees.
