A lizard's life.
Pictures of a Florida sub-urban lizard, with comments and facts.
Welcome to another post on ‘The Void’ where I share about the Slopes and Tangents in my head that are not about food and cooking or about fitness. Today I am sharing about lizards. Hit subscribe, like, share, and leave a comment. What do you know and think about lizards?
This lizard modelled for me this morning. It seemed curious about what I was doing, and it let me get close to it, until I got a little too close.
Generally, in Spanish they are called lagartijas, but in Puerto Rico we call them lagartijos.
The cats of the neighborhood I live in, and the blue herons, love to visit us for a lizard buffet every now and then. I am glad that we have little pockets and corners where our favorite fly and roach eaters can hide and live.
Many families, mine included, let lizards live inside their house as a solution for indoor bugs. They also help keep the bug population in our garden. Other foods for this fascinating species are fruits, leaves, tubers, worms, and other lizards.
I live in Florida (US) which is home to some “15 native species 34 exotic species”. They (lizards) do a lot of push-ups (also translated as lagartijas). Some of the reasons for working out so much are to display strength to attract mates, or as a warning to anyone or anything that is a possible threat. Note that the behavior of demonstrating strength to attract a mate is not limited only to men but occurs in males of multiple species. It has been observed that female lizards also do push-ups.
As kids, my friends and I used to catch them -and used a palm tree leave (the flexible but strong core in the middle), or a long grass spear- to tie them by the neck and get them fighting.
The catching techniques were to either get them with our hands and tie them up, or to employ a sort of cowboy lasso approach. I was more of the lasso guy, and I didn’t venture into the practice of using them as earrings.
But catching lizards was a great recreation and play. We would compare who had the biggest one (of course we had to), the best colors, and the best monster appearance (fear factor). We would also compete to see who would catch them faster, and when one of our friends demonstrated exceptional skills at it, he’d become the master hunter.
Other facts:
According to the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation “there are over 7,000 lizard species worldwide”.
In the Guinness World Records the Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum), a resident of Mexico, is the world’s most dangerous lizard.
Some of the rarest lizards in the world can be found in Fiji, Vietnam, Jamaca, Guatemala, and Australia.
Lizards are interesting creatures that have been around for millions of years. What has your experience with lizards been?
Lizards bring me glee. We used to have them in our bathroom in Australia...little bright green ones that ate the mozzies. Weirdest feeling, at first, to see them crawling up the tiles in the middle of a shower, and then eventually welcoming their hard labor and companionship. And we had a big, fat blue-tongued lizard in our garden that lived there for years. The loveliest companions. Que divertido leer esto. 😊
I used them as earring! And i remember when putting the lizzard in the water so they can swim.