Red Lizard



The Red Lizard is one of the species of lizard. They are the largest, most aggressive and most dangerous lizard the player will encounter. As one of the hard-mode enemies, they are only found natively in a few places as Hunter, and may be lineaged as Monk or Survivor.

Red lizards have a 100% or 1/1 bite lethality rate.

Appearance
Red lizards are some of the most decorated lizards, typically featuring long, thin frilled tails and backs adorned with spines. Some may lack the fiery manes of their siblings, exhibiting smaller and darker back spikes. They are usually bright red, but may occasionally be more orange and, rarely, light pink, peach and salmon colored. Red lizards have the longest average tail-to-body ratio of any lizard, and may feature up to 4 distinct scale types on a given individual.

Combat
Red lizards are by far the most difficult and time-consuming lizard to fight due to their tenacity, speed, ability to disarm with their projectile spit, and tankiness - they can take 10 spears or more before they die. Additionally, they are very resistant to explosives. A tamed green lizard may be a good ally to have when fighting red lizards due to their immunity to red lizard bites. Hitting red lizards in the mouth will stun them for a long time, giving an opportunity to get some free hits in at their body. Explosives will also stun them for a few moments.

Stealth
Sneaking past red lizards is next to impossible due to their heightened senses of vision and hearing; they can hear and see you from far off-screen and will do everything in their power to make their way to you. Additionally, they are typically found in long flat stretches of terrain, giving few options for sneaking around them.

Evasion
Due to their speed, evading red lizards can be quite difficult - they can catch up with you in the blink of an eye. If a red lizard is between you and where you need to go, always retreat to a location where you can manoeuvre around them more easily. Getting to high ground is recommended due to red lizards being reliant on poles and creature tunnels, but must be done quickly as red lizards will utilise their projectile spit to knock you off poles as you are climbing them, and will also try to position themselves to knock you off high ground with it too. If you are running away from a red lizard, you may be able to utilise their the knockback from their projectile spit to boost you towards your destination. Finding a group of other creatures such as squidcadas or scavengers can also distract them, buying you time to get away safely. Advanced movement, such as slides, can also help put more distance between you and any pursuing red lizards.

Projectile Spit
Red lizards have the unique ability to spit projectiles at their prey. Whilst the spit itself does not deal damage, it causes a lot of knockback, weighs down whatever it is attached to, and can even disarm the player. The projectiles have an impressive range, but red lizards must stop moving to shoot them.

Fearlessness
Red lizards are not afraid of vultures or king vultures, and subsequently are not affected by their respective masks.

Taming
Red lizards, as to be expected, are the hardest lizard to tame: not only are they dangerous to approach but they require a lot of food too, taking on average 7-9 scavengers or squidcadas to tame.

Red lizards are the strongest lizard companion, held back only by their inability to cross regions. They are capable of fending off the vast majority of threats and will fight until dead. However, a lot of time and effort is required; on Monk and Survivor you must first lineage a den to even begin the process of taming one, and on Hunter the time spent taming one would be much better spent elsewhere.

Red lizard lineage dens can be viewed on the interactive map.

Trivia

 * Red lizards have the highest visual range, swimming speed, and vision when looking into water from the surface of any lizard.
 * This technically makes them better at swimming and looking into water than salamanders, who have 0.2 speed and 50% vision compared to red lizards' 1.9 speed and 95% vision. However, red lizards cannot dive.
 * They move so quickly in water that the water around them will be displaced.
 * Red lizards will attack others of their kind on sight with an extreme aggression not exhibited by any other breed, almost always resulting in a fatality. They are mostly neutral towards other lizard types.
 * Unlike any other lizards, red lizards will attack - and often kill - king vultures (and even miros birds, though that interaction does not occur often). Additionally, dropwigs and big spiders, who usually attack all other lizard types, will attempt to flee from red lizards.
 * Even if a red lizard is holding a corpse in its mouth, it can still fire projectiles.
 * Red lizards are capable of biting every frame.
 * There is a 1/10,000,000 (one in ten million) chance that a red lizard's bite will fail.