Sunday, October 3, 2010

Ants and their wiggling captive...

A couple of weeks ago I was leaving for work, when I spotted something wiggling around on the walk to my car. I saw a bunch of ants holding onto what looked like a worm or something, and they appeared to be carrying it left and then right and then left again. Back and forth. I thought, "What the heck?" So I put my stuff in my car and came back with my camera to get a better look, and this is what I found.


That would appear to be the lost tail of a baby lizard. It is still moving, and the lizards are hanging on for dear life, trying to figure out what to do with it, I guess. Pretty cool. A few days later, Woodrow spotted a very small lizard with no tail. So it seems the trick of dropping it's tail succeeded in saving its life. (For those who don't live around lizards, that is a little trick they have. When caught by a predator, they will drop their tail, and it's wiggling on the ground will sometimes distract the predator so the lizard can get away. The lizards then grow new tails.)

1 comments:

Susan said...

Okay, my son officiallly loves your blog! Spiders and now ants and squirming lizard tails. I can't tell you how many times I have seen something scooting across the floor and - after I scream - realize it is another lizard he let loose in the house! He says they eat bugs and so I should be happy in case a bug comes in the house (I am always on guard for sneaky bugs!). He said that if we had enough lizards in the house I wouldn't need to clean so much or put everything in containers, lol.