WoW Petopia Community

So, today my friend came over and we took Kayla (my 3 yr old) for a walk around the small lake near where I live. We spotted snakes, a frog, lots of caterpillars, birds, the beaver dam, lots of deer, the usual. However, we encountered something VERY different on the way home. At first I thought it was a snake when we saw it, but it ended rather abruptly and was fatter then a snake normally is...Being the wonderful nature lover I am, I of course pounced on the poor thing and managed to gently pin it to the ground where its legs????? worked rapidly to try and free itself.

One big thing to understand how strange this is, is that I live in Canada, in BC. Canada only has 5 species of lizards, and I am 27, and spend lots of time critter hunting and have NEVER EVER seen a lizard here, most of them can be found back east, where the weather tends to be much warmer (in spring/summer) and there are more desert-like places that lizards love...So, needless to say I was very shocked to be holding a Lizard in my hand.

So, I decided to bring it home. Where I found it was just down the road from where I live, so returning it home at a later date wouldn't be hard to do. But I wanted to find out what species it was...since well, I'd never seen a lizard here.

I think this guy is a Northern Alligator Lizard (Elgaria caerulea), it also appears to have ticks...I am looking up tick removal from reptiles atm. Lyme disease does not appeal to me, so I'll be taking care when treating the poor thing.

Curious indeed! If you plan to house him or her for any length of time, look carefully into care. I'm not an expert, but some require heat lamps, or certain environs to thrive. I'd guess it'll eat crickets/insects/etc.

neat pics!

yeah, I am currently babysitting a bearded dragon again, so I have some ideas on lizard care. This one being a more cold climate tolerant lizard, I will be looking into what it might need. Going to check out some local 2nd hand stores for a bigger tank. Right now its in a little bug catcher or compact travel tank.

It certainly does look like an alligator lizard.

I'd check out this care sheet, this site usually has good information:
http://repticzone.com/caresheets/2506.html

Be sure to wash your hands often and make sure nothing comes in contact with the bearded dragon, wild caught reptiles can often carry problematic things with them.

Thanks for the site link, i'll check that out. Yeah, when i was carrying it home i saw the grey blobs on it and thought it might either have a growth or parasites, so I made sure to wash my hands really well after I put it in the cage. My friend would skin me alive if I got her lizard sick!

So, for now I took some suggestions on the site to "spruce" up its tank...such that it is so it wasn't just sitting on the plastic. added some dirt and moss, seems a bit happier for that. I can see the intelligence in its eyes when it watches me, really need to figure out if its male or female, lol. Also needs a name

He looks like a little dinosaur! I vote for Rex ;P

Looks like a Skink to me have him go like this and see if is tongue is blue.

Rawr wrote:Looks like a Skink to me have him go like this and see if is tongue is blue.

I thought only Blue-tongued skinks tongues where blue. But it does look like a skink! looks like a bigger version of the ones we have here XD

Mmmm, he definitely looks like a Northern Alligator Lizard, they're native to BC (I didn't realize we had such a tiny lizard species count :0)

Sorry for the largish pic, tinypic is the only site I know that can resize without distorting but it doesn't have middle ground between this size and the next size down which is rather tiny



Edit: Researching further, we only have one species of Skink, the Western Skink which has a blue tail

Ah I see. It's head is what got me! The only lizards we get here are geckos and skinks XD

I love reptiles, but they're too expensive for me to be able to acquire and care for right now, but I wish we had more variety and saw them more often D: I've only seen a handful of garter snakes and no lizards in all the time I ever went to grouse mountain (very popular place, not too long of a drive from me) which was pretty much yearly growing up xD

Yup, Alligator Lizard. It's actually quite docile so far. I've been able to handle it without getting attacked, and for the most part it just watches me as I watch it. I thought it'd at least try to bite me a few times by now. Especially while i was doing the tick removal. I only found the two, one behind the front arm and one in it's ear on the same side. I was worried about the one in the ear, but luckily it had bitten in near the outer ear and just stuck its butt into the ear, so I was able to tease it out of the ear and get a grip with the tweezers. Into a bowl of rubbing alcohol they went.

So, now it is Tick free as far as I can see, didn't see anything else crawling on it like mites or other parasites, so hopefully that was all. I'll be monitoring it closely for signs of other things. Going to check out second hand stores tomorrow, for a tank. I'll feel a bit better once it's in a bigger tank and I can better feed/water it. Not to mention it will have room to roam around.

If it's so docile it may have been someones pet. I hate people who just throw their pets into the wild and think they can survive. We get that here with turtles and tortoises (and the occasional crocodilian or giant constrictor). It's so horrible what happens to these poor guys.

Ah cool the Canada one is a subspecies!. I had to google them as I wanted to learn about them. I also thought Canada would be like England but nope you guys have way way more reptiles XD But they have the best lizard in the world the Slow worm!

Your Five-lined Skink is very pretty!

I'm glad to hear it's doing well!

If at all possible it would be good to get it into a reptile vet so they can check for inner parasites and give a good once over.

Hehe, I am not sure if it was someones pet or if its just taking things in stride like a Canadian

Yeah, we do have a number or reptiles here, and amphibians. Seen lots of snakes, mostly just the 3 types of garter snake, lots of frogs, turtles, newts, salamanders, tree frogs. But Lizards, that's something I hadn't seen in the wild here, I knew we had some species living here in Canada, but never expected to actually see one where I live, especially when the weathers turning cold.

I do love skinks, and the one with the blue tail is sooooo pretty!!!! I wish we had those in BC

Ah, yes, I've been thinking about taking it in to the vet, just not sure how much an exam will cost. Unfortunately after my last trip to the vet...umm, plus my BF just got back from Vacation so we wont be getting a paycheck from him for 8 more days, and rents coming up. We are a tightening our belts up a bit on spending. But, I'll keep a close eye on it and maybe in about 3 weeks we could afford to take it in. I am not to worried about it since, well in the wild it would still have these issues, but now at least it does not have annoying ticks now, and it has food/water and no predators.

You could always call the vet and get a price check on an exam. I work vet reception and a lot of people do price checks.

It's not hard to find a place for it to in hibernate. Just find a shoe box and leave it on a shelf in a dark and quiet room where no one will bug it, like a shelf in the garage or a closet. Wait till the box starts shaking in the spring and put the lizard in a dish of lukewarm water. They may drink for an hour or so, after that feed it it something.