A few weeks ago I spied with my little eye something green moving in the oak tree outside my office window.
Well, isn’t that special? We have lizards galore in Florida. Tons of them outside and some get inside; I swear there might be a Lizard Labor and Delivery in our master bath as I find babies all the time.
But THIS is a different lizard.
I sent pics in our family text thread and Lolo confirmed immediately that this is a Native Anole. (She wasn’t nick-named The Bug Girl as a kid for no reason) I said, I’ve seen anoles before, but never this big. She thought maybe I’d only seen females which can get up to 5″ but the males are 8″. I was thinking this might be a bit bigger than that, but didn’t give it another thought.
Then just two days ago I saw him again through the window and thought to myself that he must have taken up residence in that particular oak tree. No biggie.
On Sunday morning, I noticed something on top of my bird feeder under our cypress tree outside my other office window. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Nope. It was huge and bright green!
I grabbed my cell phone and asked the Coach to come and see The Lizard. By the time he came to my office, the guy was gone. Man, he was BIG. Much bigger than the one I’d seen twice in the Oak tree and I went outside to locate the Giant.
It took me a minute to find him in the tree; he’s a blender. Can you see his HUGE eyeball? The better to see you with…
Ya’ll, this guy must be a foot long which led me to do a little bit of intel since This Anole reached 8″ and then said: Hold my beer.
INVASIVE IS MY LEAST FAVORITE SPECIES.
(I was today years old that I learned that you always say species and not specie; even in singular form)
In my research this guy is an Knight Anole which is Native to Cuba and invasive. I was curious to see what they eat…and I gasped upon learning: spiders, flies, crickets, small beetles, moths, butterflies, small slugs, worms, ants, and nesting birds. Um, we’re gonna need to enact a diet restriction on my property.
NOT SO FUN FACT: they can grow to 20″.
He didn’t care for my prying eyes…and the sun was bright and for a minute there I could not see where I was supposed to be looking.
Notice how he puffs out his dewlap at me. That either means he wants to fight or mate. Please let it mean fighting.
I also learned today that there is a name for the weird thing is under lizards’ necks. Dewlap.
Well, that’s the nature lesson for today, so excuse me while I try to figure out how to eradicate remove them from my vicinity because guess where butterflies roost at night? In trees. 😩
XOXO
Busy Bee Suz 