White Lizard



The White Lizard is one of the species of lizard. They predominantly appear throughout many early to mid-game areas and pose a significant threat to a player unaware of their surroundings. They have the unique ability to camouflage, blending in with backgrounds, and incredibly long tongues to catch their prey with.

White lizards have a 28.6% or 2/7 bite lethality rate.

Appearance
White lizards uniquely have white bodies with black heads. This means that unlike most other lizards, they do not exhibit any hue variation. They are usually plain, or have small frills and back scales.

Combat
The key to fighting white lizards is to stay level with them, as they are very difficult to fight in a vertical situation due to the advantage their long tongue gives them. As with most lizards, their head is armored, so it is recommended to flip them with a rock to the head and then throwing a spear, or ambushing them from a favorable angle. If facing them head on, you may be able to use their tongue to your advantage as they are rendered immobile while reeling you in. If they are climbing against a background wall when speared or hit with a rock, they will be momentarily stunned and let go of the wall - if you position yourself well, you can drop them over a death pit, instantly killing them once they drop off-screen.

Stealth
White lizards usually position themselves to have a good view of the room they are currently in, making it hard to sneak past them. Additionally, their camouflage can make it hard to even know where they are, making stealth against them difficult. They are pointed out by the Overseer sometimes, but you can also discern their location by looking for their eyes, teeth, and body outline against the background as their camo isn't perfect, or by making enough noise to get them to salivate - as ambush predators, they tend to stay stationary when not actively pursuing prey and are very unmotivated to investigate noise, making this a viable strategy. It should be noted that in some areas their camouflage does not work very well.

Evasion
White lizards are easily able to keep up with slugcat, being able to take shortcuts across walls, so great care must be taken when trying to escape from them. Throwing rocks at them will stun and knock them off of the background wall, slowing them down significantly. If a slugcat is grabbed by the lizard's tongue, getting close to them or throwing something at them will cause them to let go. White Lizards, while fast, tend to give up easily and will usually stop pursuing if they lose track of you, instead opting to set up an ambush.

Bugs & exploits

 * Like other wall-climbing lizards, white lizards commonly get stuck spinning in circles, especially after catching prey.
 * The white lizard's tongue can cause some weird physics interactions, particularly it can sometimes be used to slingshot the player.
 * Usually when a white lizard latches onto an object below it with its tongue, due to gravity pulling the object down it will become stuck and unable to release it until hit.

Wall Crawling
White lizards possess the ability to walk on background walls. This makes them a difficult enemy to evade, especially due to their high speed. Even more troublesome is their habit of camouflaging themselves in the background walls of narrow passageways, making it easy to stumble into them by accident.

Camouflage
When idling, white lizards will mimic the color of the background they are standing on, often rendering themselves near invisible save for their eyes and mouth. They will stay motionless, waiting for prey to pass them by. Once they have spotted potential prey, a lizard will emit particle effects, often giving their location away. When their prey has wandered close enough, their camouflage will fade away as they lash out in an attempt to capture it, either with their long tongue or strong jaws. This camouflage is not infallible however; any damage to their body will result in their coloration going haywire and they will lose the ability to camouflage themselves effectively for the cycle.



Tongue
When ambushing or pursuing prey such as the player, white lizards will employ their extremely long tongue to try and snag them. Once their tongue has hit something, they will be immobilised as they attempt to reel it in so that they can bite it. If struck by something, it will stun them and cause them to release whatever they are latched onto.

Taming
White lizards take an average amount of food, usually requiring 2-3 scavengers or 3-4 baby centipedes.

White lizards can follow the player through many regions due to their ability to wall-climb, and can be advantageous to bring into Shaded Citadel from Industrial Complex as their full-body glow can illuminate the area around them to a certain degree. However, they're not particularly good at combat with other creatures due to their tendency to hang back and rely on their tongue rather than engaging in directly fighting, and will run away from vultures.

A recommended place to tame white lizards is the big vertical room with a pearl, and more importantly two white lizards on the right side of Industrial Complex, near the gate to Shaded Citadel. Below this room are tunnels with baby centipedes, which you can kill easily by taking a single bite out of them and then transport into the room above.

Variants & attributes
!WIP!

Trivia

 * White lizard original colors.gif lizards are the only terrestrial lizard species to have a white body, rather than a black one. They are also the only lizard to have a pure black head.
 * Additionally, they are one of two lizard species to not have any hue variation, the other being black lizards.
 * They are the only lizard species present in the subregion The Leg, and co-inhabit the rest of The Exterior with yellows and (if playing as Hunter) cyans.
 * They have a very low rivalry rating among members of their own species, beaten only by cyan, black and yellow lizards.
 * At a certain point in development, white lizards bore similar coloration to other lizards, having black bodies and white heads.