One Tough Survivor

When our friend Joanne was visiting last month, a Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) approached her, stared directly at her, and appeared to be encouraging her in a difficult decision she was making.  It probably was doing no such thing, but the fact that the lizard had survived the loss of its tail and still appeared to be thriving did give her encouragement.

Joanne's Lizard

When I saw the lizard last week, I was surprised to see he had lost a foot, too, but he was still active and thriving, soaking up a few rays on our garden wall.

We had heard that these lizards could shed their tails in order to escape from predators, although according to the San Diego Natural History Museum, the Western Fence Lizard avoids dangerous predators through "constant vigilance and fast reflexes."  Mad-Eye Moody would be proud of this critter.

Some of our cats love these critters, too.  They spend hours at the front door, watching through the screen as a lizard taunts them through the security door.  Sometimes we have three cats lined up at the door intent on the lizard. We've actually had a couple of lizards in the past who were fool enough to get into the house, but we've always managed to round them up and evict them before the cats found them and did any damage to them. We had been told they could be toxic to pets who tried to eat them, so we've always tried to keep them and the cats apart, although the cats have other opinions about that.

The Lizard Patrol On Alert

These lizards are pretty common in our garden and in the San Diego area. In the summer we usually have four or five in the garden at any given time. Turns out that is probably a good thing:  they may reduce the incidence of Lyme Disease where they live, as the Western Fence Lizard blood will destroy the Lyme disease spirochetes when an infected tick bites the lizard. Western Fence Lizards apparently also eat crickets, which may explain what happened to all the brown crickets that hatched out last week--the cats were also fascinated by the crickets.