NEWS-PRESS (Fort Myers, Florida) 19 April 05 Egg-laying iguana lies down on job (Byron Stout)
At the risk of being assigned full-time to the iguana beat: one more column inspired by the recent capture of a green beastie at Fort Myers County Club.
Readers may remember that the 3-foot iguana endured the briefest of residencies at the Stout home and Sunshine Elementary School, where it was greeted with all the cheer of a skunk at a church picnic.
Happily, it was fondly adopted by the Dawsons of Lehigh Acres, who even offered to return it to any rightful owner.
All you have to do is disclose the name to which the iguana comes. Just kidding.
The open adoption period ended at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, when David Dawson finally completed its 20-cubic-foot pen. But more later on the need for a home with three heating elements.
On publication of the column about the capture of the iguana — a non-native species heretofore not known to be breeding in Southwest Florida — readers responded with an almost-overwhelming four calls. Callers from Hendry Creek and North Fort Myers reported missing iguanas that have not been seen since Hurricane Charlie.
Joe Merritt, 86, advised that if the Dawson's iguana doesn't work out as a pet, "they're wonderful like chicken, fried." Merritt survived World War II in the Philippines, in part by hunting lizards.
Bill Turner, of South Fort Myers, said that if things didn't go well with the Dawsons, he would welcome another iguana. His son in Alva captured one for which he has built a three-story "McMansion," complete with swimming pool.
Turner's iguana is a male that his grandchildren refer to as "the dragon.'' Mature males have long spikes along their backs that give them a distinctly firebreathing appearance.
The Dawson children, Kelsey Dawson and Joe Winkler, thus named their new pet Spike. But they since have modified the moniker to Spikette, after he laid 15 eggs.
Spikette now watches over the eggs as she munches shredded squash and red leaf lettuce on her internally heated rock, which aids her digestive processes. She also likes to lie in the sandbox in which the eggs are buried, likely due more to the heat pad underneath and the heat lamp overhead than to any maternal instincts. Iguanas normally are lay-'em-and-leave-'em types.
Paul Mohler, a reptile expert with the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, suspects that the eggs could be fertile and could hatch in about 90 days. Breeding iguanas plague the horticulturists at Miami's Crandon Park and Fairchild Tropical Gardens, where they seem to seek out the rarest plants for their dining pleasure.
I sense irony in the spread of iguanas throughout Florida, as several Web sites note that they are increasingly threatened in their native lands by habitat loss, hunting for food, and collection for the pet trade.
Egg-laying iguana lies down on job