I woke up today and stretched out on my balcony like I do every morning. The hybrid eucalyptus/native vegetation forest has grown to twice its height since I arrived here at the end of last year, and the native wildlife has really settled in. It’s nice to watch fireflies playing tag before I go to sleep and wake up to bird calls new to my ears. This morning I looked down on our cooking area and saw an iguana chilling out on my cast iron skillet (note: It might the same kind I photographed at my university a while back).
He cocked his head at me as I approached:
what up, foo?
This out-of-focus photo is the only one I took that shows his full tail length. Amazingly, he let me approach to within macro distance, so the other shots came out somewhat better:
(as always, click on photos to open a larger version in a pop-up)
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Nice lizard. What do the Thais think of lizards, iguanas and snakes?
Any of those “good luck/bad luck” superstitions in their culture?
Those big warty black ones that live in the canals look evil….I’m sure they carry more than salmonella!
Those black warty large lizards are likely water monitors, Varanus salvatore. While you should not fool with a wild one, they are in the US pet trade (dumb, I know) and luckily they can tolerate humans. Above link is a short video showing Pete, our pet water monitor, taking a swim in the pond.
I had a pet iguana back in college. Thing grew to be huge.
It used its tail to whip the shit out of my hands every time I reached into the cage to feed or clean it!
Cool reptiles, though