Adorable Lizard Who ‘Doesn’t Understand Obstacles’ Is Outsmarted by Pillow

Some people love reptiles, others can’t understand why you’d want something so scaly as a pet. Whichever side you’re on, you have to admit their ability to get anywhere and everywhere is pretty impressive. Like this gecko, who traveled 4,000 miles in a woman’s bra. Or this Bengal monitor lizard, who somehow got stuck in a toilet in India.

Well, one lizard has gone viral on Reddit for not getting anywhere at all. User Smnmnaswar posted a clip of his blue tongue skink to r/AnimalsBeingDerps on Thursday, after the lively lizard was bested by a pillow.

Captioned “My lizard hasn’t figured out the meaning of obstacles yet,” the stripy skink can be seen “swimming” on the Redditor’s bed and struggling against a pillow blocking his way.

Users couldn’t get enough of the reptile’s adorable failure, with the post receiving 35,000 upvotes and more than 300 comments.

UpholdDeezNuts said: “Hehehe looks at its little legs kicking. You keep trying bud, I believe in you!!!”

Notapoke wrote: “Not the brightest lizards.”

Bigbutchbudgie commented: “I love skinks. They’re like derpy sausages with legs.”

CrazyWulf2019 suggested that the little guy was trying to swim, joking: “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

While Vibe_with_Kira compared the skink to a video game character blocked by a wall: “Invisible barriers in games be like.”

According to the American Pet Products Association, 5.7 million households own reptiles in the U.S. in 2022. Interest in reptiles as pets has grown over the last decade, with 85 percent of “other” pet owners (including reptiles) saying their pet is a part of the family, according to Packaged Facts’ February/March 2020 survey. Reptiles are particularly popular pets for families with children, as well as Generation Z and Millennials, due to being easy to care for and maintain.

The skink, named Sploot, lives with his owner Konrad in Germany. Konrad told Newsweek that he adopted Sploot a month ago, but sadly, the skink didn’t have the easiest start to life.

He explained: “I got him from someone who was not providing proper care to him.

“He wasn’t fed a proper diet and the humidity in his enclosure was not high enough [which] causes trouble shedding.

“If a lizard can’t shed the old skin off of his feet it may constrict the blood flow to the toes which usually causes them to simply fall off.

“Unfortunately he didn’t have any toes left when I got him about a month ago.”

Luckily for Sploot, his new owner has been doing all they can to help him get back on his feet.

Konrad added: “He has an enclosure that is meeting the humidity requirements for his species and he [has] started doing a lot better.”

Many fellow skink owners suggested that the lizard wasn’t stuck, but actually attempting to burrow.

Petaurus_australis explained: “Mine does this too. They’re little bulldozers, most of it is an attempt to burrow or find shelter of some sort.”

However, he also warned the poster to not let the skink wear himself out.

They added: “Don’t let reptiles do this for too long, under exertion, particularly running / digging, lizards actually can’t breath (the functions share the same muscles) and seemingly small bursts of high exertion can create fairly large energy debts for them.”

Konrad explained that Sploot’s lack of toes makes it difficult for him to grip on to objects.

He said: “[He’s become] a lot more active and curious and he loves to climb, even though he sometimes has a rough time holding on to things (this is exactly what happened in the video, he wanted to push the blanket away but he wasn’t able hold on to the bed sheets).”

Many Redditors found the tiny fellow oddly relatable.

Blenderhead36 said: “Honestly, my week has felt like this.”

Heterodynist commented: “He looks really stupid doing this, but really he’s actually doing almost the exact same thing MOST of us do in life, but we do it for years at a time and pretend we are getting somewhere.”