Riding lizards are calm beasts, suitable for riding and carrying burden. Their shape is sleek, somewhere between that of a cat and a horse. They have lizard heads, long saurian tails and short grasping claws. Their limbs are dextrous and they are capable of moving on their bellies like a lizard, or galloping like a horse. The former is much slower but allows them to go over practically any terrain and even climb walls or trees. They have a variety of colours, depending on their breed, with green the most common. There are other distinctions between breeds, such as greater speed, increased strength and soforth.
Riding lizards seem to have intelligence equivalent to a human, but they are happy not to use it unless they have to. They are content to placidly eat grass and be broken in by other species, and will only show genuine intelligence when they are afraid or confronted with a situation they need wits for. They are content with their place as beasts of burden in exchange for food and safety, as long as their owner keeps up their end of the deal. Most people think riding lizards are more stupid than horses, though do wonder sometimes when gaps mysteriously appear in fences around mating season, or stable doors tend to open by themselves.
Riding lizards need to be kept near water because they are even more fastidious about cleanliness than cats, and bathe frequently (more frequently sometimes than their owner), but they are more resistant to diseases because of this. They seem to link cleanliness with attractiveness, with the animal most likely to mate being the healthiest and cleanest creature. When ill, they tend to smell unpleasant, which keeps other riding lizards away from them and stops them from mating. They cannot be gelded because their testacles are inside their bodies, and vets know better than to dare such an operation anyway. Thre have been some bizarre stories of trysts between riding lizards and their human owners, though that's probably due to the owners being cuckoo imps that have started a certain phase of their young lives.
Riding lizards are usually sold at the same price as the average horse, having advantages and disadvantages that make them equal in usefulness. They are on the whole slower than horses but carry more weight and can scale almost vertical surfaces, their claws working like pitons. They are omnivores, with a wider range of diet than horses, but they need to eat greater amounts of food.