Look What Crawled Out of a Hole

Excellent! I have no plans to grow up either.

It's fun being a kid

I was keeping them in a toy box as pets for some time. I couldn't catch many of them tho

What did you feed them?

After you caught them then what did you do? When I was a kid I was always catching crayfish out of the creek and I tossed them through the air to my dog who chomped them in his mouth mid-air and swallowed them whole. Sometimes I would throw him 50 or more a day in the summertime.

You are really brave! It turned out to be a great lesson for you all.

I only confronted one snake with chivalry. It was one the boys in my 5th grade class hid in my grade book. I knew they were up to something because the class was too quiet. When I reached for my book, there were a few little gasps in the room so I knew whatever they had hidden was in there and I was prepared for anything. They sort of hoped I would scream, but instead I said "Oh, a cute little snake" and passed it around for all the children to touch, and made a science lesson out of the episode. It was just a little garter snake, not poisonous at all and not slimy either. But after everyone got to play with it, I made the boys take it back outdoors and set it free. We had just had a chapter in the science book about how to properly handle a snake and also how to tell if they are poisonous or not, so the timing was very good.

I think it is a Sagebrush Lizard, although they have one called Western Fence Lizard that is similar in appearance. I am not a lizard expert, but I think this one is actually a girl, because according to my encyclopedia the boys have bright blue marks on their tummies. I do not think they have very big teeth, but they will make rather aggressive biting motions if frightened, so I am not going to pick one up and turn it over to look. Salamanders are cute, too, but as this is a desert area we do not have any of those as they begin their lives more like tadpoles, except that when they come out of the water they don't lose their tails the way frogs do. My lizards are not as brightly colored as the above ground-salamanders, but they do change color a bit, not as dramatically as the chameleon, but enough to confuse me ;-)

Monitor lizards are BIG, though, and not as spiny. After Abbey asked what kind of lizard it was, I have been researching and have pretty much decided it is Sceloporus graciosus, commonly called Sagebrush Lizard. It eats ants and other insect pests, so it is a friend to my garden and to me. When it cannot find a flower pot to hide under, it lives in gopher holes. It is the gopher who would harm my plants, him and the rabbits. But most of my plants are indoors where they are safe, and I am thinking of building a shelter of some kind for the outdoor plants.

Thanks for telling me about the Sagebrush Lizard, drannhh. So in a eco-living, it is contributing in the sense of helping to control the population of pests in your garden.

The animal that scares me most is a spider. We have several kinds of poisonous spiders here, and if the lizard will eat them I will be most grateful.

at least lizards as big as that has a great help in you for killing those poisonous spiders. i do not fear spiders but of course if it's poisonous i don't want to put myself at risk for it. whew i admire your courage to take lizards.

I hope it does not give you bad dreams. I do not think that if they got much bigger they would be so cut, but as long as they stay teeny I find them adorable.

I have to do some research and find out what kind he is but they are under every rock around here and in the gopher holes, too. Unlike the gophers which I am doing everything to try to get rid of, I think the lizards are adorable. I will say this, too! After looking at pages and pages of how to identify California lizard photos, although I am still not sure what lizard this is, it sure is cuter than most of them. Some I would not want crawling around on my patio.

You are right, these do not like cold weather. If someone had this lizard as a pet, s/he would have to buy live bugs to feed it.

Oh, yes, I had something like that happen with tadpoles once. I still shudder to think of it. A lot of things get baked to a crisp in the hot desert sun. Probably that is why this little fellow likes to live underneath my flower pots.

I think they do bite but they are not poisonous or anything like that. Still I am not putting my hands near its mouth. Thank you for your comments ;-)

They have such cute mannerisms. Almost like little faery creatures! Some lizards are slimy looking but these are not at all icky.

He is just little and I would never kill him, but I would not try to hold him in my hand either, as I think he would try to bite. Their teeth are not very sharp, I think, but they probably do have bacteria in their mouths. This one is not slimy and I have not seen him crawl, but he darts about very fast when he is not trapped in the flower pot.

I know exactly what you mean, because when I go way out in the countryside I see bigger ones and they are bolder, too. I think it is smart to run away from them. Just don't trip and fall!

I hope it looks scary to the spiders. I don't like spiders. It eats ants, so it is my friend. I like scaly lizards better than slippery ones ;-)