The Sunday Reptile Report

Greetings! It is my pleasure, on this lovely Sunday morning, to welcome you to what may become a regular P Club featurette - a round-up of the week's reptilian goings-on. I got up just before sunrise this morning - I know, I know - and went out to drink my tea on the porch, where I found a little green anole perching on my banana plant. Green anoles (Anolis carolinesis) are very common around here and I've often tried to take pictures of them, but usually they don't come out very well.










You might notice that it was a lot lighter in later photos - did I mention that I got up at sunrise today? Oh, that's right, I did.

In other reptile news, Steinbrenner found a Mediterranean Gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus) in a conference room at MUSC. She caught the little bligher in a cup and brought him to show me. We looked him up on the web and found out that they are an invasive species that has become quite common in the Southeast US. They are often found in urban areas and are frequently confused with the 'house gecko' (Hemidactylus frenatus), another non-native species found in the US. Since he didn't belong here in SC, let alone in a conference room, and since he is devastingly cute, we decided to name him Bernard and keep him. I haven't got a photo of him yet because he's still settling in, and I don't want to put him under any more stress right now. But rest assured, Bernard will get a full post on the P club in time, with pictures, gecko-gek info and maybe even the tale of how he almost became a 'house gecko' here at 125A.

Anyway, that's about all for now then.

- Mr. Ed