Larry the Lizard

So I was walking through a park near my apartment in Austin, Texas when I stumbled onto a tree that had split and partially fallen over, near the very base of the trunk there were two wood mushrooms growing.  As a kid my family always went out mushroom hunting for the highly prized morels (in fact a large part of the reason for my excursion this time was to see if I could find some morels).  I actually think these mushrooms here are edible, though not entirely sure, and they were still soft so if they are that would be the time to pick them.  I decided I would rather just let them grow so that they could continue to add character to the tree.  As I was further investigating this tree I happened to kick the part that had fallen down and lo and behold!:

It turned out that the fire ants had made this fallen log into their home.  I actually ended up getting bit by a couple of the fire ants and have some of the pimple-like marks fire ants make on my hands to prove it.  Of course I couldn't resist the temptation to mess with them so I kicked the log a bunch of times to make them swarm when out comes......

Ever since I was a little kid I have always loved catching wild critters.  My mom still recalls the time when my cousin and I filled up a 5 gallon bucket about a 3rd of the way full of snakes.  She LOVED that.  She was even happier when we spilled it over near the house and they scattered in every direction......

I guess I haven't grown up much because I still like catching wild critters!

 Notice how at the end he is a different color?  After I caught him he progressively became green for about thirty seconds.  I thought that was so cool!!!!!

It was at this point that I decided to make a video of me when I released him back on the tree and I uploaded that video to youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QndtUMahTa0&feature=player_embedded#


After doing some looking, I would say that this guy is probably a Green Anole or Carolina Anole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_anole

On this page they suggest that a stressed lizard turns brown and that a happy lizard is green.  From this experience I would say the opposite is true.  Unless the lizard decided it liked being caught, which I doubt.


Take it easy until next time!