About two weeks ago, I found Princess Fair-weather Daintypaws hunting something in my office. I moved some stuff aside and found a bead on the floor. I praised her for finding the bead and put it up on my workbench, but she continued in hunting mode, so I figured there was something else under there. I moved more stuff aside and found what I thought was a large worm flopping around on the floor, so I scooped it up, carried it outside and dumped it in one of the garden beds. It flipped itself over and I saw the scale pattern on it and realized it wasn't a worm, but the tail of a Southern Alligator Lizard.
Since those lizards shed their tails as a defense mechanism, that meant the lizard itself was still in my office.... with Princess. So I hustled back inside, tossed her out of the office, shut the door and started hunting for the lizard. I found him, but he scurried away before I could catch him. I moved more stuff, but he got away again. Since then I've kept the door to my office shut in the hopes that the lizard would take the opportunity to escape into the furnace room so Princess wouldn't kill him.
These lizards are valuable bug hunters. At the Art Glass Guild studio in Spanish Village in September, I watched another Alligator Lizard hunting a swarm of termites. As each flying termite fluttered to the floor, that lizard, whom I named Albert, would pop out of hiding, gobble up the termite, and dash back into hiding until the next termite landed. So I was hoping Alfred would do the same thing under my house.
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| Albert About to Nab a Termite |
I hadn't seen anything of this lizard since then, but this afternoon I found Princess in hunting mode again, this time under the bookshelves in the family room, so I picked her up, put her in my office and shut the door. I couldn't find the lizard, so I reopened the door, and found Princess sitting there with the lizard curled up on the floor in front of her. I shoved her into the bathroom, shut the door and looked for a container to put the lizard's body in, but when I turned around, he was gone. Hoping he hadn't run under the bathroom door, I opened it, and sure enough, she was hunting again in the corner of the bathroom.
I got her out and finally managed to trap the lizard in the container.
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| Alfred in the Container |
He didn't appear to be wounded, so I carried him waaaayyyy out behind the fence and released him into the shrubbery.
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| Alfred Among the Shrubs |
Run free, Alfred, and DON'T COME BACK INTO THE HOUSE!
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