O-M-Gosh, I just saw something C-U-T-E!

[LilStinkpot]

And I didn't have a hand free to take a picture! (OR a camera :roll: )

I saw something scurrying in a parking lot, and spotted a tiny hatchling bluebelly (AKA fence lizard). He was barely an inch and a half long. His resemblance to a baby beardie was uncanny! When he decided to make a break for it across the grass, instead of under it as momma would have done, it was an easy and gentle snag for me. Such a cute little bugger, still had his "belly button"!

After one last looksy, I put him down by the fence on some rocks with the admonishment "stay out of trouble!". I hope he listens!

 

[nair88]

that's awesome! i've never heard of bluebellies before, so i just googled them and you're right - they do look a lot like dragons. definitely too bad you didn't get a picture of him.

 

[ziggy23]

Very cool. My husband gets to see snakes all the time at his job. He works as a mechanic in this little town on the edge of a forestry. In late winter/early spring he's always finding snakes inside cars. There's a ranger station just a few miles up the road in the next county. So he takes them all down there so they can be relocated to a safer spot. That whole county is like 80% forest and some of it protected, so it's a MUCH better place for them to live all around. Sometimes they use them in their breeding programs too.

 

[LilStinkpot]

Ziggy, I wish our rangers would do that-- re-locating snakes. We nearly ran over a rattler, and when we called them to come move it, the dispatcher said "well, that's their natural habitat, go around it." :roll: That was a four lane highway. We did "convince" it to at least get off it's nice, cozy, flat "basking rock".

I am an avid wildlife lover, and I love to take as many pictures as I could. Alas, I still haven't gotten a replacement camera, and my hands were a bit too full of baby lizard to handle the camera phone.

Here's a consolation picture: the aforementioned western rattlesnake. No diamonds, just rattles. Dial-up users, beware. :mrgreen:
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc221/tippitytwitchit/Critters/040-2.jpg

 

[nair88]

Here's a consolation picture: the aforementioned western rattlesnake. No diamonds, just rattles. Dial-up users, beware. :mrgreen:
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc221/tippitytwitchit/Critters/040-2.jpg

oh man! that brings back some childhood memories. i spent 7 years of my childhood in southern oklahoma, and we couldn't go a day without seeing at least one rattler.