Thursday, April 23, 2009

"Unwelcome" residents



This brown anole's eyes are bigger than its mouth. I shot this picture next to my egg-plant vegetable bed. Even though they devour pests in the garden, Brown Anoles are an invasive species probably introduced as unwanted pets like so many other unwelcome Florida residents. They out compete and consume many native lizard species.

Last weekend my eldest daughter got the urge to spend some of her birthday money on a new pet. I was amazed to see so many different kinds of snakes and lizards for sale. Baby python snakes etc. We have an ecological disaster in the making with the pythons taking over the everglades, just this week they were reporting on the news how some cities in the Florida Keys have trained the electricity meter readers and other service providers to also serve as animal patrol agents - when they spot a python they round it up and bring it to animal control, even so, they expect the snakes to invade most of the upper Keys.

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