night lizard, (family Xantusiidae), any of 26 species of small, secretive New World lizards that live under rocks and decaying vegetation and in crevices and caves. Three genera are known. Xantusia (six species) occurs from southern California to the tip of the Baja California peninsula, with one species in Durango state, Mexico. The 19 species of Lepidophyma are primarily subtropical and tropical in distribution, living in a variety of habitats from eastern Mexico into Panama. The single species of Cricosaura (C. typica) occurs only in eastern Cuba.
Night lizards have no eyelids; the eye is covered by a transparent spectacle, or scale. Similar to many geckos, night lizards can clean their spectacles by licking them with the tongue. Although they have elliptical pupils, which allow more light to enter the eyes in low-light conditions than do round pupils, night lizards appear to be more active during the day, though in dark places. All species are viviparous, producing fully developed live young after an extended gestation period, during which a placenta is formed connecting the circulatory system of the mother with those of the developing embryos and providing nutrients essential for development. The number of young produced (one to eight) is small by lizard standards. Even though the body sizes of night lizards are relatively small—less than 10 cm (4 inches) in length from snout to vent—those species that have been studied are noted to have long life spans. Most small lizards have life spans of less than 10 years, whereas night lizards may live as long as 20 years. The long tails are easily autotomized (that is, separated reflexively from the body) and regenerated nearly in full.
The desert night lizard (X. vigilis) lives underneath decaying Joshua trees in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Among the smallest night lizards, X. vigilis is less than 4 cm (1.6 inches) from snout to vent. It eats small insects and termites that live under logs. A close relative, the granite night lizard (X. henshawi), lives in crevices, where it moves about during the day.