Cold winters and dense urban sprawl make New York one of the least lizard-friendly states in the country, yet a handful of species still cling to rocky hillsides, city parks, and even a converted greenhouse. Anyone researching the types of lizards in New York quickly discovers that the state’s reptile roster is short but genuinely interesting, mixing rare native holdouts with recent arrivals that hitched a ride through the pet trade.
This guide walks through the five-lined skink, the Italian wall lizard, the brown anole, and the northern fence lizard, four species that represent nearly the entire lizard fauna found within New York’s borders.
Before diving into individual species, it helps to know what separates a lizard from the salamanders many New Yorkers confuse them with. According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, lizards can be told apart from salamanders because…