Friday November 18, 2011
Although most of our fieldwork is fish-centric, we can’t help but notice the wildlife we often encounter. The quick hands of this fisheries technician were able to catch an alligator lizard as it lay along side a fallen tree. As the technician soon discovered, alligator lizards are not passive when it comes to being captured by humans or other predators. They often bite, defecate foul smelling feces and even detach their own tail to distract the predator and attempt to escape. In this instance, the lizard’s tail stayed intact and the technician avoided a bite, but his hands were left in need of a good scrubbing.