PART ONE: Lizards and Snakes and Bugs, Oh MY!
When you’re hanging out with friends and sharing a few Corona’s the conversation can lead to some interesting wildlife stories.
Undoubtedly someone will always try and ‘one up’ the other to win the best ‘worst encounter with a bug or animal’ story. We Canadians can tell some great black bear encounters or moose tales, but Mexico animal stories wins all!
Everyone lucky enough to live in Cabo has experienced some crazy and scary encounters with a scorpion or giant spider and with time the story gets more and more exciting. My lizard story is a good one.
My little dog Bruce loves to chase lizards and flies out the door each morning knowing their exact hiding spots. This particular morning he immediately found ‘big daddy’ basking in the sun and he urgently escaped Bruce and ran as fast as his little reptilian legs would go and flew straight into the pool. I was barely awake and luckily happened to witness big daddy splash into the water. The instant he hit the water his body stopped moving. He definitely knew the dead man float! I was horrified and hoped to see him swim his way across the pool but he did not. I searched my early morning brain and wondered - do lizards swim? Thankfully he was not sinking to the bottom of the pool and still floating but I couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
For a split second I thought of jumping into the pool to pick him up with my hands. (Nope) I ran back into the house and found a broom knowing that with each second that passed meant life and death. I reached the straw broom under his lifeless body not knowing if he was dead or if he would spring to life the moment he was out of the water and race away. I gently laid him on the pool deck and he lifted his head (Yeah) but it flopped back down showing me he was certainly dead. I gave him lizard CPR using the broom handle to give 3 short taps on his back, rested for 3, and 3 more short taps on his back … over and over. He lay lifeless.
Big daddy lizard has lived in my outdoor terrace wall for years and I do enjoy seeing him each summer. I have seen his family grow and even caught him sexing one of his females. Yes, I can report to you that I may be one of very few people in the whole wide world who has actually seen a lizard penis. This being a family story I can only say it was exactly the same as a male dog. (Really)
Okay, so I decide to go back into the house and watch from a distance. It didn’t take long when he made a full recovery and scurried off to his nearby home in the wall. (Happy ending) Big daddy smarty-pants was playing dead the whole time!
Besides having a few good scorpion and big black hairy spider stories (best told over wine) my absolute favorite involves a rattlesnake. Check out Part 2 of this post to read it!