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Ancestor: Zootoca vivipara (Common Lizard)

Descendants: Mudslider

Size: Up to 90 cm for older females, up to 80 cm for older males. Most newly mature adults are closer to 40 cm long.

Dietary Needs: Opportunistic predators of a mixture of invertebrate and vertebrate small prey. As juveniles they eat mostly small invertebrates, such as larval grubs, water snails and soil organisms. However as they grow larger prey becomes more accessible to them, and they start to cannibalise, hunt other smaller lizard species, raid lizard, bird and mouse nests and eventually hunt crayfish, fish, adult mice and adult birds. They also eat carrion increasingly more so as they get bigger, using their size and temper to  intimidate other scavengers.

Life Cycle: Egg-laying has been abandoned due to the vulnerability of eggs and the relative protection the mother provides to offspring while developing. The 20-40 baby lizards are born very small and birthed over an extended labour as the mother travels so that they aren't too crowded next to each other. The young are born fully independent and run from their mother immediately, no parental care is offered. She will eat those who are born incapable of fleeing danger or those with no danger instinct.

Because longevity is more important in females due to gestation time they are a more drab colour than the males, who compete over the more limited in number females to mate with. The feeling must be mutual, females are attracted to males with brighter colours and who are a larger size. Females also don't mate with males that they are much stronger than. Sometimes the same pair will keep meeting up and mating out of continued preference, or a male will follow around the same female and keep other males from her almost like a pseudo-monogamy. This is more common in more arid habitats where there is lower population density, thus a lower encounter rate of potential mates. Unexpectedly, this trend continues despite the fact that with two adults around more of the offspring get eaten when the mother gives birth. The reason is that the ones that get eaten just for being a little bit slow were most likely never going to reach adulthood, so it doesn't significantly impact the future adult population.

They have two mating seasons, the winter late dry season and summer late dry season, and females gestate over the wet seasons. Pregnancy may result in skipping the next mating season to recover from gestation and replenish fat reserves.

Other: When really threatened and it's hot, these lizards enter a berserk state. It often results in heat injury or muscle damage to the lizard, but they become crazy strong and angry for a short time.  This is not the same as their usual attempts at dominance assertion, this is a fear-induced state. Mammals become more lethargic in the heat so this will likely see-off or sometimes even kill a mammalian attacker. After, the lizard enters a depressed state where it drags itself to shelter to recover, sometimes for days. This berserk state doesn't work if the temperature is not high enough. It is an emergency life saver, it is very difficult to stress these lizards out that much that they will do this.

Not counting berserk state, lizards are significantly faster and more quick-reflexed than other descendants of the ancestral viviparous lizard when size scaling is taken into factor. They are also very strong and difficult to wrangle, so even cats  can struggle to take them down when the lizards are fully grown and may prefer just to keep their distance unless desperately hungry.

Has skin frills that help with heat loss or warming up, much like Central Catland Micro Lizard.

Due to the high incidence of rivers in the area they evolved in they are good swimmers that can swim against currents. Rivers are no barrier and they hunt in the water. Juveniles are also able to scale rough vertical surfaces such as tree bark or canyon walls with their claws and splayed gait to hug the surface, but the adults outgrow the traction these surfaces give and become too heavy to climb by this means, relying more on crevices and ledges to use as leverage and to grip on to. If adults must climb they only do so with much need and care.

They are still capable of burrowing and still hide from the elements and rest in burrows, but they are no longer as significant for safety or nesting. Sometimes they will save themselves the work and use natural shelter if it's available.