It was usually sitting motionless and once you went near it it would stare you down and either start doing push-ups or disappear in a green blur.
I looked all over the Internet to find a picture of this mini-dinosaur, but I did not find anything ressembling our Garden Godzilla.
One day I was walking on a path between two palm trees and the thing ran up my leg, across my chest and jumped to the other palm tree. I didn't scream like a girl and run around in a circle trying to get the dinosaur off of me, (I save that for when a palmetto bug lands on my head), but I was determined to find out what this monstrous lizard was.
And the other day, while reading about the Cuban Brown Anole, who is terrorizing Florida, I found a picture of the monster that's been terrorizing me all these years.
It turns out, that like me it's another export from the Pearl of the Antilles, the Cuban Knight Anole. We're practically Family!
Some this morning I put on some Cuban music and went outside to commune with my green Cuban friend. I decided to name him Lazaro. Lazaro Lagarto,but he was nowhere to be found.
What's Janet Reno doing these days anyway?
4 comments:
Another lizard rafter?
That's un camaleon verde, as I use to have them in my backyard in Havana.....
I currently have them in my backyard, and I remember seeing them as I was growing up in Miami in the 60's and 70's. They were called "Cuban Lizards" by the kids in school. My parents had a gardener that happened to be a real guajiro, and he told me they called them "Chipojos" back in Cuba.
Funny you mentioned them, my wife was screaming in the yard this afternoon because one of these Chipojos was sunning itself on our grill! I couldn't tell you who was frightened more, my wife or the lizard!
Befriending hideous dinosaur looking lizards and naming them is SO outside of my personal comfort zone. I totally would have screamed like a little girl, then I would have begged (LOUDLY) for sedatives. =D
At least these are not like the ones that took over the neighborhood when we lived in Hollywood. Those were very large, some were close to 3 Ft. long. They were also very agile, able to run on their two hind legs. But they din't run from people, only from snakes. Yes! Snakes! Had plenty of those too. Sometimes the snakes would feast on these big "lizards", and curl up to digest them on my front lawn. We would be holed up in the house for at least one day, or until my dad could drive up from Hialeah with a machete in hand. You see BOTH my husband and I SCREAM like girls at the sight of any of these creatures. Which is why we now live in Aventura, in a condo. It's hard to find a creature that can climb to the 30th floor. Now we get snow birds and turkey vultures, but that's another story.
Post a Comment