Two weeks ago, I was walking on the lawn outside my apartment chatting on the phone, when I saw the brightest blue squirmy thing in the grass. A worm? A snake? It was about 5cm long. Lucky for me, the small creature wiggled onto the sidewalk and under one of my planters. It was a lizard of some kind. I described it on the phone to my friend from Austin, who correctly identified the lizard as a "skink". I managed to take the above picture of it. I believe this is a blue-tailed skink. Apparently skinks lose their blue tails when they enter adulthood.
Last week, I had a close encounter of the 8th kind with an orb weaver. A stray jacket left outside the building was brought inside out of the rain and hung on a doorknob waiting for its owner to recognize it. Although the jacket was not mine, I thought I'd try it on and without realizing it, tried on the high-jacking spider for size too. I was admiring myself in the bathroom mirror, then went to, well, you know, when I saw the orb weaver sitting on my leg. I was quite startled. I brushed the spider off and carried it to safety on a paper towel.
There are many small rodents and lizards in Los Alamos, but fortunately, I have yet to see a roach. Which is just another reason that Los Alamos is indeed, utopia.
2 comments:
I love orb weavers! They are all over my yard, though never as big as the one on that guy's face! I'm glad to learn they don't bite.
They are so beautiful. And di you know they build a new web every night and CUT DOWN the old web when the sun comes out?
Muy interesante!
There are lots of chipmunks, rabbits, mice, lizards, snakes, deer, and skunks here too. I've seen all of these animals.
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