If you spend any time in Barbados it won’t be long until you see the Barbados anole (Anolis extremus). They’re small lizards, mostly green, and can normally be found climbing up outside walls and fences. They were originally endemic to the island, but have found their way onto Bermuda and St Lucia.

They tend to grow up to around 8cm in length and some of them have the most beautiful, iridescent colouring. From Wikipedia:

Males have pale lavender to blue-gray heads, with blue eyelids. Their dorsal surfaces are deep green with dark markings and occasionally white spots, and their bellies are yellow.

In Barbados, these lizards are sometimes called green lizards, tree lizards, or cock lizards (males only).

Tropical house geckos

I don’t recall ever seeing a Barbados anole inside the house, but I have seen plenty of smaller, pale lizards. I had thought they might be infant versions of the green lizard, but it turns out they’re actually Hemidactylus mabouia, or Tropical house geckos. They’re much less attractive creatures, which tend to look almost albino or translucent, and being nocturnal have large Manga-esque eyes.

Neither species is harmful to humans, and anything that eats cockroaches is all right with me (and we get some bloody big cockroaches in Barbados!).