This is a brown anole: This is an Eastern Fence Lizard: I've seen other photographs of anole lizards looking like a fence lizard, so maybe it's hard to tell the difference. The anole lizard above doesn't look like mine in that picture, but there were definitely others that were very similar. He's cute I know that and I have no intention to kill him to see his belly, but maybe I can put a clear glass he can crawl on? That will be nice. He prefers my tomato plants is all I'm happy about. They are doing good for as late as they were planted. One bush is loaded with about 12 small green tomatoes.

cute!! they have so much personality!! lol

I've got jillions of those little green lizards, too - anoles - and I've only seen them eat a caterpillar once, and that was a cutworm. They eat lots of hard-bodied insects here. The manuals that they sell in pet stores list various hard insects as their preferred food, with caterpillars rarely eaten, so I think if you have a healthy ecosystem, they won't eat your cats. I've never seen a frog eat a butterfly or caterpillar either, just bugs, so if they eat any, it can't be often. In my area, the biggest predators on caterpillars are wasps and stinkbugs, and about the only predators on adult butterflies are mantids and spiders, but, again, these attacks are rare. For whatever reason, in my area this year the wasps have been fewer in number than in years past, but the stinkbugs have been everywhere! MissSherry

Perhaps a juvenile Golden Tegu? These lizards can get big (3 foot long body alone) and like the monitor lizards, are invasive and established in Florida - especially around the Tampa and Miami areas. They cause the same type of destruction as monitor lizards, too. And you can still find them being sold as pets! I can't find a picture of a juvie, but maybe this picture will help you determine if this is what you saw, although it looks more yellow than orange to me. Here is a link that might be useful: Golden Tegu