Our cats are an endless stream of entertainment for us, even better than TV sometimes! And they love showing off, especially when they are proud of their achievements. Just the other day Hannah came in making some weird sounds, sort of a "HHmmmHH", trying to get our attention. Well, she had a pretty good-sized lizard in her mouth, about 18cm long. She put it down, the lizard took off with about 3 cats and 2 adults in pursuit! Now normally lizards sort of "spin their wheels" on the kitchen linoleum, going full speed but pretty much running in place, but this one actually made some headway. After getting close a couple times, I finally caught him before he got behind the computer desk, to be lost forever... He seemed to be in pretty good health, and before releasing him in front of the house, where the cat density is lower, Melinda got the camera out for some closeups. Don't you just love the little lizard claws?
This fellow had seen better days, but survived to tell the tale of his close escape. Most lizards can shed part of their tail, the wriggling segment sometimes distracting the attacker long enough to escape. This fellow's had lost his tail at some point in the past and it was in the process of regenerating when Hannah found him. He also had some toes on one of his hind feet gnawed off. Don't know if Hannah is responsible for that or not. Both these defects are seen at left.
I didn't have much luck doing a search on the Interweb identifying her, but I did notice that amateur astronomer friend
Sam Rua had a large number of reptile images on my Google search, so I e-mailed him with the above pictures. Ten minutes later (!) came the reply - Tiger Whiptail,
Aspidoscelis tigris! That's why Hannah was so proud - caught a tiger! She tired quickly of having her photo taken, so I released her in our front planter and a split second later was gone, but not forgotten! Meanwhile, the cats sit and watch the back yard fence for any wildlife brave enough to enter through the cracks...
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