Lizards
It didn’t take long for us to get used to lizards being around us everywhere after we first moved to Florida years ago. At first the little lithe crawlers ticked our nerves every time we saw them when we ventured outside. Then, as time went by, just like we became accustomed to the hot air, we also came to terms with the lizards.
Lizards, despite their looks, are quite harmless creatures. It is said that they eat mosquitos and other disease bearing blood suckers, although I’ve never bothered to find out the truth. They move extremely fast. When I walk on sidewalks, there are always lizards zipping across in front of my feet. I usually try to avoid them, but in reality that doesn’t seem to be necessary. They can always escape from being crushed under my feet, unless I intentionally do, which I never did anyway.
Lizards are excellent jumpers as well. They can jump to several times of their body lengths with ease. If they are dropped from high altitude, they never crush to death. For humans, that’s equivalent to jumping off a skyscraper. For lizards, jumping from such a relative height is routine in their lives.
Occasionally a lizard makes himself a guest in our house. I have no idea how they get into our house, which is almost ant tight as my wife demands. But somehow they get in. Although we can peacefully coexist with them as long as they remain outside, once they get in, they are my wife’s number one enemy. Regardless the time of the day when they are first spotted by her, she will not cease screaming until that hapless guy is destroyed or expelled from her dear home. She cannot do anything in the house with the knowledge that something can get on her bed and may even crawl on her face. Thus even if she sees a lizard hanging at the ceiling late in the night, a war must immediately commence with the ultimate goal of the destruction or capture and expel of the thing.
In this war, she is the commander in chief, I am the general, the colonel, the lieutenant, and the foot soldier, completely at her disposal as the fast changing battle develops. Her mood swings as fast as the movement of the enemy, which moves at lightning speed when he realizes that a war has been declared on him. When the enemy is first seen, I am the general and I must quickly come up with a strategy. This is sometimes easy and sometimes really hard. If the enemy is found on the floor, then at once I have been demoted to a foot soldier. I must kill or capture the enemy with all the zeal and speed. If the enemy is found somewhere else, for example, on the ceiling, then the general’s job truly requires the experience of a seasoned military strategist in such battles. Advanced weapons must be used in such occasions, for the enemy must be guided to a place where he is vulnerable.
Such battles have happened many times. However, we are not always victorious. The enemy not only possess the advantage of speed but also sly and cunning. One of the most useful tactics of a lizard is his ability to sacrifice a part of his body to escape from certain capture. This trick usually works for smaller predators, but for us, who are well advanced in intelligence and determination, we cannot be fooled. But we must prevent the enemy from using this tactic. The commander in chief’s order is always crystal clear, capture the enemy in whole so that the battle field can be easily cleaned up. In the first a few battles, I tried to use equipment to do the capture. For example I tried to use nets, plastic bags, and other devices to do the battle. But the equipment, although more than sufficient for use to accomplish the work in open field, usually becomes useless in tight quarters. So after a few failed attempts, I tried to put on rubber gloves, which resulted in the escape of the enemy, and when that occurs, unbearable admonitions from the commander in chief came done harshly without reservation. So later I resolved to using my bare hands to do the job. After so many battles, I am now adept at capture the enemies alive.
To prevent a lizard from splitting itself, a lizard must be quickly captured by its thorax. I usually grab its neck. Usually a lizard captured this way doesn’t drop its tail. Once a lizard is captured, we need to decide how to get rid of it. In the beginning, we were merciless to our POWs. The commander in chief was ingeniously cruel after an exhausting battle. So she would order me to wrap the little thing with thick paper or plastics, and squeeze the whole thing. We’ve never seen the crushed body of the creature but we knew for certain that the enemy has been completely destroyed. Then the wrapper was tossed into the garbage. The operation was effective and clean.
Later we realized that it was too cruel to kill the enemies that way, in addition to waste of time and materials. Also victories came easier as I became more experienced. So I devised a more humane treatment of the captives, I just flushed them down to the toilet. But this technique is delicate and it takes good timing to drop the lizard in the water. If it is dropped down too early, it may be able to climb back up. The whirling water, although powerful enough to bring down much heavier stuff, is often ineffective when the lizard is on the wall of the bowl. The lizard should be dropped in just after a whirlpool takes shape. Lizards are light, they float in the water, only a whirlpool can bring them down.
As I perfected my technique, my sons couldn’t remain silent anymore. They finally raised their objections to our uncivilized treatments of the innocent creatures. The excoriated us for killing the lizards with such unimaginable cruelty. Finally my wife and I came to terms with the kids. We can still capture the lizards but we must release them. Henceforth, when I find and catch a lizard, I open the door and throw them out to the lawn. Our war with lizards now still rages on with battles fought from time to time, but at least everyone in the house is happy about the outcome.
The lizards that are often found indoors are usually not the same type as the ones found outside. The lizards outside tend to be darker in color. The skin color of the lizards indoors is much lighter. Sometimes their skins are so light the inner stuff can be seen. I have been puzzling about the differences and still don’t understand why. I doubt there are lizards live indoors because the temperature inside is much colder with air condition on all year round. Lizards are cold blooded. The cooler environment is not what they like. I doubt they change their colors when then get inside either. I’ve also caught dark colored lizards inside. So I think they are different species.
Most of the lizards found inside are about 1 to 2 inches in length. Occasionally I’ve caught larger ones, some of them as long as 5 or even 6 inches. Around our neighborhood, we see mostly small lizards. But at my workplace, there reside some larger lizards. They are at least 6 inches long and the torso is more than 1 inch in diameter. These lizards are all brownish in color. I’ve seen some green lizards, which are even larger, most of them are 8 to 10 inches in length. These lizards are rarely seen. They are really beautiful. The green is very pure.
Larger species of this type of reptiles are iguanas. One day I was driving on a busy highway and I saw a large green iguana crossing the highway. The iguana was about 2 to 3 feet in length. I drove so fast and didn’t know if the poor reptile was lucky enough to make to the other side of the 8 lane highway. At another time I was lucky enough to spot an iguana in a parking lot.
Lizards are cold blooded. There are a few days in every year in south Florida that the temperature can go as low as 30s. Lizards can be frozen to death if the water freezes. This indeed has happened in this part of Florida in the last a few years. I wondered how they managed to survive the winter. But apparently they also found ways to endure the cold days. When the temperature warms up again, they are found in droves again, just like before.
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