I just got back from a trip to Aruba in the Caribbean…where I made the acquaintance of that island’s most (to me) spectacular inhabitant. The mighty iguana! To me, the most pleasurable part of traveling is seeing what critters live where I happen to be passing through. So here I am in my 60s, still wildly fascinated by animals. But I say, who wouldn’t love these rock climbing, graceful but tough looking reptiles as they sun themselves on the coast?
When I was a little girl, lizards were rare or possibly nonexistent in my Ohio neighborhood. Seeing an iguana would’ve been an eye-popping experience!
No, when I was a kid I had to satisfy myself with salamanders, which I hunted with my little jars in the creeks near my home. I would bring them home to settle into a terrarium, undoubtedly terrorizing them with my big curious kid eyes pressed against the glass.
My own Florida yard is teeming with that lizard’s tiny cousins…the graceful little anole lizard, as they dash across the yard. But I enjoy them immensely. My other local favorite are the nocturnal gecko, with his slithery, rubbery little flight from light. There is something I find cute about their big eyes and stick-to-the-window toes. Once in a while I am entertained at night by their perching on the glass outside my studio window, gobbling he moths attracted by the light inside.
What is your favorite animal outside of the USA?