I was photographing in a garden with a rockery and out popped this lizard, looking, I imagine, for a potential dinner. After a close inspection I noticed his tail looked a little odd. The tail of an alligator lizard is easily broken off, as it is with many lizards. The tail will grow back, although generally not as perfectly as the original. A lizard may detach its tail deliberately as a defensive tactic. When first detached, the tail will writhe around for several minutes, long enough to distract a hungry predator from the lizard.