One common reptile called the wall lizard uses a particularly clever tactic to sniff out fights it can win—literally.

Some reptiles, such as the Italian wall lizard, also can learn from other species.

As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him; but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man’s hand would have any effect on him.

She was dissecting hundreds of common wall lizard embryos for a study and had never encountered this invader before—but soon she started finding them in more of the still unhatched reptiles' brains.

A biologist is studying the Italian wall lizard, above, to learn how it’s adapted to a colder and more crowded environment.