Curly-tail Lizard

February 2000 Table of Contents

ABACO'S FRIENDLY CURLY-TAIL LIZARDS

Visitors to Abaco for the first time might be somewhat apprehensive on their first contact with a curly-tail lizard. It's big as local lizards go, averaging six inches body length but often considerably larger. It has a certain Paleolithic quality to it: primeval, scaly and long of claw. Yet that curly tail gives it away. The curly-tail lizard is, indeed, every visitor's pet away from home.

To be honest, the curly-tail lizard should not be around any more. In its natural habitat of coastal sand dunes, its tail makes it conspicuous to predators. Its waddling gait makes it the slowest of local lizards, easy to catch even by a human being. It relishes open spaces. It does not employ camouflage and seems to be crying out to join the dodo as an extinct species. Yet it thrives.

Not everywhere, however. Curly-tail lizards (Leiocephalus spp) do not exist on all Bahamian islands. You will find them on New Providence, but only because they were introduced there in relatively recent times. Nowhere will you find them more at home with their environment than on Abaco, where generation after generation of winter visitors and tourists have befriended their very own special curly-tail. Some of these friendly reptiles must have inherited dozens of pet names while they entertained our visitors.

For some reason, curly-tail lizards are relatively unafraid of human beings and take to them very easily. Virtually every household on Abaco has a curly-tail or two that is unafraid to enter the house on occasion. If you go to the wild coasts of Abaco where human beings rarely venture you'll find them there equally unafraid, ready to enjoy crackers and wiener sausage offered to them. It doesn't take long for them to trust you well enough to eat from you fingers. On those summer days when doctor flies are at their worst, you can toss the swatted insects to curly-tails and they gobble them up like filet mignon.

Probably their worst enemy is the domestic cat. Like most lizards, however, curly-tails have detachable and readily-jettisoned tails. This alone does not explain how the curly-tail lizard thrives when all seems against it. Trusting human beings is not a recipe for the longevity of any species. Monk seals were once abundant in The Bahamas and they were unafraid of human contact.

Curly-tail lizards exist throughout the Caribbean. They are represented by five species and six sub-species in The Bahamas and are closely related to iguanas and anoles. Herpetology apart, the friendly curly-tail lizard does as much as any of us to set our visitors at ease and make them feel at home.

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