There are some wonderfully pretty little lizards in Hong Kong, but perhaps my favourite is the Blue-tailed Skink.
A very shy skink, with a brilliantly bright blue tail. These tails fade with age. Often seen on sandy/rocky sunny slopes, and often found at altitude, so a great place to look for them is on the Peak, or on Tai Mo Shan. They have excellent vision and quickly disappear, but a bit of patience is often rewarded as they come back out to sun themselves again.
The blue tail: It is thought that the tail is so blue so as to divert would be predators to grab it, instead of the trunk or head. That way the lizard can drop its tail and escape relatively unharmed...and the high UV reflectance increases the tail’s conspicuousness to snakes . See right for a picture where the tail appears to have grown back.
This attractive lizard eats most small insects and is Diurnal - ie out during the day. Here a much lighter morph.
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