A few days ago, while making the bed, a baby lizard came scurrying from under my pillow and disappeared down the space between the bed and the headboard. This mini-reptile was brown and only about 2-1/2 inches long, most of which was tail. This morning while making the bed, it reappeared from the folds of the comforter as I was shaking it out. I called my wife to see it, and she captured it with a washrag and took it outside. This little baby was the same type we get around here frequently, which grow to about 10" long. Our dogs take care of them, along with gophers. Hal
That's one thing we've had in our apartment here and can be very, very hard to catch and put outside. When we've opened the lid in our fireplace for the first time, after the summer months, a couple of dead ones will drop into the fireplace. Actually, we have those Geico lizards all over the place here. Definitely something that we won't have in Colorado! We're told that they keep the bug population down, but we've never seen one with a cockroach/water bug in their mouth.
Weird to see this thread, Hal. I had a similar experience this week! I was walking into our master bathroom and saw a tiny lizard scurry across the tile floor! He was about 1 1/2" long and a light color with brownish spots...a tiny little fellow! After scooping him into a plastic container he was escorted back outside where he belongs. I'd really like to know how he came to be in my upstairs bath!! I looked him up on the internet since he didn't appear to be our typical green gecko. I believe he was a "house gecko" or Mediterranean gecko which are apparently common in the south though I have never seen one before. This one was obviously a baby because of his tiny size. He looked similar to this, but smaller...
@Beth Gallagher Just yesterday morning, as I started water running in our kitchen sink, a tiny one almost identical in size to the image you posted, ran out from beneath a dinner plate lying in there. The plate may have kept it from being washed down the drain. It tried to scurry up the side of the sink, but could not. I clapped a drinking glass over it, covered it with my hand, and took it out to our orange tree, which it happily jumped out upon and disappeared among the foliage. Striped tail just the same. Frank
It's not like houses were overrun with them or anything, but it wasn't unusual to find lizards in houses in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. They were way better than the tarantulas that could sometimes be found there. When I moved out of one house, I found a huge, dead tarantula under a dresser. It didn't bother me to see a lizard on the wall.
The lizards are bad enough, but here on the west side (Riverside area), not sure if it's the creeks, but we have these BIG skinks. They are poisonous and I think can get up to a foot long. They look like a creature that should be in Death Valley or something.
Since we're in the Desert, we get quite a variety of critters! Before they built the house across the road, there was a Coyote den on that acre, and they came around frequently...we lost a cat to them and no longer allow our felines outside. In addition, a Bobcat will occasionally settle on the utility pole in the easement, and Hawks and Ravens rule the skies in our area, with the muscular Ravens getting into things that are not fastened down. We get a Mountain Lion sometimes, coming down the north slope of the San Bernardino Mountains looking for better pickins... In the wilderness areas outside our neighborhood, Kangaroo Rats and Kit Foxes are seen at night, scavenging around the Astronomy club during our Star Parties. Hal