A lizard with two tails

The two-tailed ‘house lizard’ surprised me that evening, almost making me. The small reptile, more commonly a house lizard, is no new species to me, but in all my years, I have not encountered anything I saw at my home in Shantinagar on the evening of August 12, 2018. A whitish lizard and a bhitti moved on the wall beside the dining table.

At first glance, I considered it just the usual lizard until I saw something strange at its tail. I stood up and went near the wall to look closer - just to find that the lizard I was watching had two tails instead of a standard one tail. I took no time to pick up my mobile and took a few shots.

Shedding off a tail is a common thing, every internet article on the tails of lizards writes. But in some cases, the new tail regenerates along with a new tail from the broken tail. Thus, making a twin tail or sometimes even three tails is common. I even found an article published in the Singapore Post in 1960 that says the two-tail lizard brings good luck.