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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Will new lizard in
town take a bite out
of mosquitoes?The Honolulu Lite Division of Lizards received a tip from a highly placed imbiber of alcohol that there is a new lizard in town, and it lives on mosquitoes.
This happy news sent a shock wave through not only the Division of Lizards, which seldom unearths any exciting lizard-related information, but caused quite a stir among other Honolulu Lite sub-entities, like the Department of Mongooses, Office of Plate Lunches and the highly regarded Cubicle of Chardonnay.
I had noticed that there didn't seem to be as many mosquitoes around this summer, and if a new mosquito-eating lizard is responsible, then God bless him. It wasn't long after hearing about the new lizard that I thought I saw one, a black-and-brown creature that marched across my living room carpet in broad daylight like he owned the joint.
It was startling because small reptiles in Hawaii, like geckos, are usually seen darting along the walls, hiding behind picture frames. To see one hoofing it across the floor with no fear of foot, dog or vacuum cleaner was unnerving. My first thought was that if this little bugger lives on mosquitoes, he must be quite a jumper because mosquitoes don't generally hang out on the ground.
The Division of Lizards made inquiries to non-alcohol-imbibing sources to get the lowdown on this new lizard, only to learn that it is basically a myth.
DR. ROY FURUMIZO, of the state's Vector Control Branch, has been conducting intense mosquito surveillance recently -- not because he's weird and has nothing else to do, but because there's a danger that mosquitoes in Hawaii might carry the West Nile virus. The West Nile virus is just as exotic and evil as it sounds, and if there was a lizard gobbling up mosquitoes, Dr. Roy would be all for it.
Alas, he hasn't heard of such an animal. Hawaii's known geckos consider mosquitoes little more than apritifs, and hard-to-catch ones at that. There are seven kinds of mosquitoes in Hawaii, five of them blood-sucking. The other two types are on our side, brought to the islands in 1929 specifically to battle the others. Judging from the blood salad mosquitoes make of my legs on my lanai, our team doesn't seem to be winning the war.
Neil Reimer, manager of the state Plant Quarantine Branch, got my hopes up by saying that there is indeed a new lizard in town, but quickly dashed them by saying that town was Manoa.
Madagascar day geckos, brought here as pets, are now roaming the wilds of Manoa but are not known as big mosquito eaters or little mosquito eaters, either. I found a photo of a Madagascar day gecko on the Internet, and he's pretty cute as far as geckos go. He's about 7 inches long, green and scaly, with sinister red eyes, although, to be fair, the red eyes could have been the result of the camera flash. You know he's fast because he has orange racing stripes on the sides of his head.
Reimer says the lizard I saw in my living room was probably just a confused skink, looking for a pile of leaves to climb into.
So, sorry. There's no new mosquito-eating lizard in town. But I did learn something important: When a skink strolls across your carpet looking for yard debris, it's probably time to vacuum.
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Charles Memminger, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' 2004 First Place Award winner for humor writing, appears Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com