Did some gardening in the backyard this afternoon to get my fingers dirty, and this guy moseyed on by to say hello.

I noticed (actually stepped in, barefoot) some unfamiliar poop in the entryway of our house this afternoon. I knew it wasn’t mine and instantly recognized it as lizard scat from the white tip on one end. The size told me right away that this was no ordinary reptile. It was, in fact, alligator lizard caca. After finishing watching this week’s “Fairly Legal” I donned my tracker’s pith helmet and began crawling along bottom edges of walls and furniture, thinking like a lizard. Wasn’t that much of a stretch. Within minutes I discovered it’s hiding place, mainly because it broke the second cardinal rule of predation; staying quiet. I heard some rustling papers in a corner inside my mom’s room. Luckily she was out at my sister’s, far from this looming danger. I immediately closed all other doors to make sure it didn’t enter another room if it should happen to escape. I ran to the garage and quickly put together a small box to try and capture it in. I returned and slowly uncovered it by removing hoarded stuff from behind the dresser. After it crawled out, I gently coaxed it into the box/trap I had put behind it, covered it, and walked it outside, telling it in lizardian that everything was going to be ok. I sort of nudged it into the roots of a cactus tree mixed with a large, kind of out-of-control geranium plant. I had seen two alligator lizards there before so I figured it would be comfortable there. The end.

Moral of the story is if you ever want to hide in someone’s house, don’t poop in their entryway and don’t crawl on loud paper.

Escape attempt

Captured

For scale

Free