As most of y'all know, I live in Texas. To me, Texas feels like I'm living in a tropical climate (I grew up in Colorado remember, so anything remotely warm is "tropical"). Being that it's tropical here, we get all sorts of critters that I had never seen before in Colorado. Most of these critters are the six-legged, icky kind...but some are truly beautiful.
Take the anole. An anole (pronounced ah-NO-lee) is a little lizard. It grows to be about 7 inches from nose to tail tip. They are usually a bright, vibrant green...but they have the chameleon-like ability to change their color to match their surrounding. My anole clan lives around my front porch. They're often seen at night, scurrying along the brick wall away from the porch light when you approach them. They eat all manner of bugs (including cockroaches), so as far as I'm concerned...they can live here as long as they want to.
I went out to water the flower box on my porch and found this guy clinging to the vertical pole that holds my hanging flower pot. He didn't run away, even when I moved my camera in for a macro shot of his head. He just looked at me and cocked his head in that curious way lizards do. Isn't he beautiful? I love his turquoise eye liner. As you can tell by the yellow on top of his head, he was just starting to change color to match the bricks on our house. Yeah, my camera lens was about 4 inches away from him. Can you say "extreme closeup"??? I call him a "he" because he is a "he". Male anoles do not have a stripe down their backs like the females do. Also, males have really pointy noses like this guy.
Lucky! Due to the extreme heatwave here last week (now 35ºC may be considered spring in Texas but it's sure not here) my polar bears all migrated north. So, my porch is completely creature free.
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