Lizard eggs are small, leathery, and often buried out of sight — which means many owners and gardeners stumble across them unexpectedly. Whether you’ve found eggs in your garden or your pet lizard has surprised you with a clutch, knowing what lizard eggs look like and how to handle them is genuinely useful knowledge.
How Can You Identify A Lizard Egg?
Lizard eggs are soft and leathery rather than hard-shelled like bird eggs. They are generally small — most species lay eggs under an inch long — and oblong or oval in shape. The shell has a slightly papery texture and will dent under gentle pressure rather than cracking.
Colouration is typically white or off-white. As the embryo develops, faint pink veins may become visible through the shell in the days before hatching. If you candle a fertile egg by holding it against a bright light in a dark room, you should be able to see a developing embryo inside. Infertile eggs tend to appear uniformly pale with no visible structure inside.
If you find eggs in your garden and are unsure whether they belong to a lizard, a bird, or a snake, the texture is usually the quickest giveaway — lizard eggs are always soft and leathery, never hard-shelled.
How Are Lizard Eggs Laid?
The reproductive process varies by species. In most cases, males compete for females during mating season, with the dominant male mating with one or more females. The female will then carry the eggs for a period before laying, typically burying them in soil, sand, or leaf litter to protect them and regulate temperature.
Clutch size varies enormously between species. Geckos typically lay just one or two eggs per clutch — many gecko species lay a single egg at a time, repeatedly throughout a breeding season. Anoles similarly lay single eggs, depositing them frequently rather than in large batches. Larger species like iguanas and monitor lizards lay much bigger clutches, sometimes 20 to 70 eggs depending on the species.
In some lizard species, sex is determined by chromosomes. In others — including many agamas, some geckos, and certain skinks — incubation temperature plays a role in determining the sex of hatchlings, though this varies by species and is not universal.
How Often Will A Lizard Lay Eggs?
This depends entirely on the species. Some lizards breed once a year, while others may lay multiple clutches throughout a breeding season. Leopard geckos, for example, can lay clutches of two eggs every three to four weeks throughout the breeding season. Bearded dragons typically lay three to five clutches per season, each containing 15 to 35 eggs.
What To Do If You Find Lizard Eggs In Your Garden
The best advice is to leave them alone. Wild lizard eggs are generally best left undisturbed. Avoid turning or moving them — the embryo attaches to the inside of the shell in a fixed orientation early in development, and rotating the egg can cause the embryo to drown in the albumen. If you find them in a spot that puts them at risk — under a lawnmower path, for example — you can carefully mark the top of each egg with a soft pencil before moving them a short distance to a safer location, keeping them the same way up.
Lizard Egg Vs Bird Egg: How Can You Tell Them Apart?
The shell is the giveaway. Bird eggs are hard and brittle; lizard eggs are soft and leathery. Bird eggs also tend to be larger, more symmetrically oval, and are laid individually in an open nest rather than buried. Lizard eggs are often deposited in small clusters in concealed locations.
Lizard Egg Vs Snake Egg: How Can You Tell Them Apart?
This is trickier since both are reptile eggs with similar leathery shells. Snake eggs tend to be larger and more elongated than lizard eggs, and many snake species lay eggs that are slightly stickier and adhere to each other in a clutch. Lizard eggs are generally rounder and smaller. If you find eggs and genuinely cannot identify them, photograph them in place and consult a local reptile or wildlife group.
How To Look After Lizard Eggs
If your pet lizard has laid eggs and you want to attempt to hatch them, the most reliable method is to transfer them carefully to an incubator. Mark the top of each egg with a soft pencil before moving so you know which way is up, and keep them at the temperature recommended for your specific species — most commonly between 80 and 90°F for tropical and desert species, with appropriate humidity.
If you don’t have an incubator, a sealed container with a slightly damp substrate such as vermiculite, kept in a warm and stable location, can work for many species. Check the eggs periodically but avoid handling them unnecessarily.
Final Thoughts
We hope our article has helped you identify lizard eggs in the wild and in your terrarium!
The most important thing to remember is that you should never handle lizard eggs without good reason, as this could do damage to the baby lizards.
