A holidaymaker returned home from sunny Florida in the US to the chilly northeast of England carrying a tiny unsuspecting guest in her suitcase. She did not know about it while unpacking her luggage until her mother saw it and shouted, “There's a lizard on my bedroom door.” The green anole lizard, a harmless tree-dweller native to the US, had travelled 7,250 kilometres without realising how different the climate would be. The reptile has been taken in by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), a charity in England.
Holidaymaker Rachel Bond visited Orlando in Florida and returned to her home in Whitley Bay this week. Ms Bond, 54, initially thought her 84-year-old mother was seeing things when she spotted the reptile moving around on the floor, stated a report in the Daily Mail.
“I wasn't sure if it was her age that had caught up with her, but when I went upstairs she was adamant that she had seen the reptile go into her room. We had a good look around and then we found it under the pillow on her bed," Ms Bond said.
According to a BBC report, Ms Bond said she thought her mother was very relieved that she didn't wake up in the night with the lizard on her face. “It is quite remarkable that the lizard managed to travel all that way unharmed,” she said and added that she even felt “sorry” for the lizard. “After enjoying such nice warm weather, he ended up in Whitley Bay in winter.”
The RSPCA said it was unlikely that the charity would return the stowaway lizard to its native country and so it would be likely rehabilitated to a wildlife park or zoo in England. RSPCA inspector Lucy Green felt the lizard was “very lucky”, that it had survived “such an incredible journey”.
According to Nature journal, the anole is native to the Caribbean islands, and one species can be found in the US, “from Florida and Texas up to North Carolina”.
