Mexican beaded lizard debate among scientists. However, this venom has been found to contain several enzymes useful for manufacturing drugs in the treatment of diabetes, and research on the pharmacological use of its venom is ongoing. Threatened throughout its range by overcollection and habitat loss, it is a CITES protected species. The Guatemalan beaded lizard ("H. charlesbogerti" ) is one of the rarest lizards in the world, with a wild population of fewer than 200. The beaded lizards have one close living relative, the Gila monster ("H. suspectum"), as well as many extinct relatives in the Helodermatidae, whose genetic history may be traced
The Lizard du Maurier based many novels on this part of Cornwall, including "Frenchman's Creek". The Lizard was featured on the BBC television programme "Seven Natural Wonders" as one of the wonders of the South West, and on the BBC series "Coast". In James Clavell's novel "Shōgun", ship's pilot Vasco Rodrigues challenges John Blackthorne to recite the latitude of the Lizard to verify that Blackthorne is a fellow seaman. The Jennifer McQuiston 2015 novel "The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior" is set primarily in the fictional village Lizard Bay on the Lizard in the mid-nineteenth century. In the television adaptation of "Horatio