TIMES-UNION (Jacksonville, Florida) 09 August 07 Wayward lizard fans the flames (Jessie-Lynne Kerr)

Photo at URL below: Jacob Long, a 22-year-old student who lives near Jacksonville Fire Rescue Station No. 58, lost his lizard. It turns out that Brian, a 3-foot-long Argentine Black and White Tegu, had wandered into the station, where he was captured. (Jarrett Baker)

He just found the back door unlatched and decided to take a walk and meet his neighbors.

But the 5-year-old Argentine Black and White Tegu lizard managed to create some excitement with reports that a poisonous reptile was on the loose in the neighborhood.

Not so. Animal Care and Control officials at first said Brian was a Nile Monitor lizard, a species the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission calls a "reptile of concern" and whose owners are required to have permits to possess. But they later determined he was a Tegu lizard, available at pet stores and reptile shows.

Fire and Rescue Capt. Roosevelt Prier was on duty at the station at 251 Joeandy Road in East Arlington Tuesday when a firefighter in the laundry room yelled, "Y'all gotta come see this." Cowering in a corner of the large equipment bay was the creature.

Prier called Animal Control after some of "the other courageous firefighters" corralled the lizard inside an overturned trash can.

It turns out that Brian, a perfectly legal-to-have-in-Florida reptile, lives just over the fence from the firehouse with his owner, 22-year-old student Jacob Long.

Long acquired Brian at a reptile show in Baltimore. While Brian is kept indoors during the winter, Long said he spends summers on the screened-in back porch. He's gotten out in the backyard before. This time, Brian managed to dig his way under a fence.

He and the lizard were reunited Wednesday at Animal Care and Control.

Brian, who is a little more than 3 feet long and weighs 15 pounds, "eats like a garbage disposal; just about everything," Long said.

He said everybody loves Brian. "The neighborhood kids are big fans, especially when he swallows the eggs whole."

Now if only the firefighters could warm up to him.
Wayward lizard fans the flames

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