Hi Hivers!
Today I want to share a useful tip if you want to save a lizard from the jaws of your cat, dog or for any other reason you may want to pick up and move a lizard from one place to another.
I found this beautiful guy cornered by one of my cats just a few minutes ago. He had already dropped his tail in an attempt to distract the cat and make his getaway but that obviously hadn"t worked.
Did you know lizards can drop their tails and regrow new ones? They do it if under attack like this hoping that the squirming detached tail will catch the attention off the predator and give the lizard vital seconds to run to safety.
He was hissing at me as I approached with his mouth agape, ready to strike me. I quickly found a short but strong stick and slowly offered it to him. He immediately attacked, biting into the stick.
I was instantly able to lift him up ( he was NOT about to let go! LOL So glad it was a stick and not my finger!! )
I placed him together with the stick into a BIG glass jar. Even when I dropped the stick and him inside the jar, he remained hanging onto it.
I easily found a safe place deep within the garden and left him there, still hanging on the stick. The cat was far away now with no idea where I had taken him. I walked away and left him to relax and make his way home or to wherever he wanted to go.
This makes moving a lizard to safety very easy. He was safe, I didn't harm him in any way in the move and I was safe from being bitten myself. It could have been very tricky to get him off my finger if he had latched on, so try this out if you have such a situation.
It works absolutely beautifully!
Such cheeky pussycats I have! They are just acting naturally of course. I can't tell them off for such behaviour but I CAN save the unlucky critters that fall foul of their feline games.
Thanks for checking out my post. See you in the next one!
Have a beautiful weekend.
Stay wild, stay free, stay happy!
📸👍
Ohhhh.... that was interesting to read and see. We don't really have big lizards here or not that I've ever seen, only small salamanders or other similar lizard like creatures that are no bigger than salamanders.
One time when I lived in Texas, I came out of my apartment one morning to go to work. At the bottom of the outside stairs, there was a medium sized skunk wobbling around with it's head stuck inside a plastic yogurt cup. Even though it could not see where it was going, I was scared to walk past it, not knowing if the sound or vibration might make it spray, so I went back up and took the back stairs on the other side of the breezeway and walked around the building to get to my car. 😄 I cared, but ... no !
When I got to work I called the complex manager to tell her what I saw down there in case she wanted to do something about it. Turns out, she was being visited by a friend who worked with animals in some way and they immediately took care of it. Seems the first thing was to cover the skunk who was still wobbling round and round in that area with a blanket, scooped it up and then worked the cup off it's head while the rest of it was still wrapped up.... and gently put it back down. Off it ran ! It sounded so easy ! But... I didn't know !
Oh wow what an interesting story. That's a great piece of knowledge to have. Knowledge is truly power isn't it. Animals often seem to know instinctively we are helping them too in such situations and are genuinely grateful.
Well done! The lizard is quite big!
A few days ago I saw my orange cat eating something on the stairs. I saw the tail of a gecko! Joan was a big hunter for geckos and field mice. I didn’t see his attack from the beginning, otherwise I could have saved the gecko! Kwan rarely hunted small birds these days. They still have the wild instinct.
Hi @kaminchan it is always lovely to hear from you. You. are quite correct our cats have their instincts. I am grateful to see as many lizards as I do these days considering this. The little geckos stand little chance although sometimes the cats really just want a chasing game and have no desire to eat them. Then they can easily carry them carefully in their mouths without doing damage which is always impressive to witness. I still do my best at rescue though as the trauma of being toyed with is enough to give some a heart attack and is no way to spend your day as a little lizard. Give Joan and Kwan snugs from me. I hope you are keeping well yourself. Stay strong and happy.
Yup! I hope my cats wouldn’t be too successful in hunting lizards and small birds. It’s better that they could hunt the big field mice.
I will give my orange cats extra cuddles.