Leonard the Lizard

Submission 11,968

Part of a series on Staring Animals. [View Related Entries]

About

Leonard the Lizard is a pet lizard of the Peter's banded skink species, as well as a member of The Council of Staring Animals. Leonard is often confused for a snake due to the lack of detail in the most popular image portraying him as well as another, albeit rejected Know Your Meme article.

Origin

On October 18th, 2019 a Reddit user ElectricSheep7 posted an image of his pet lizard looking at the camera with a blank stare on the /r/reptiles subreddit^[1]. The image can be seen below. The lizard's name was is Walter, which, coincidentally, is also a name used to refer to Nelson the Bull Terrier – another member of The Council.

Spread

On January 4th the image made its way to /r/okbuddyretard subreddit, being posted by user Good-boi-gang with a, rather curiously, blank caption^[2]. 2 days later user SwedzCubed posted the image with the caption "Hi my name is Leonard"^[3], which is the first instance of the animal being referred to as Leonard. Many other memes involving the new character soon followed.

The Council

On January 6th 2020 Leonard the Lizard officially joined The Council, as confirmed by a Reddit user fizzyboii^[4], stating that he is "honestly very proud of him". In the following week (January 15th 2020) the owner of the lizard ElectricSheep7 started an AMA on the /r/okbuddyretard subreddit^[5] by sharing a new image of the now fairly famous animal with a piece of paper that reads "HI /r/okbuddyretard AMA Walter the Peter's banded skink "Leonard" member of the Council". Leonard has been featured in most incarnations of The Council since.