Jamaican Croaking Lizard
By Mike • November 17, 2009 • 11 commentsVisiting Jamaica is truly a sensory experience. Not only does one see astounding beauty and feel that warm Caribbean sun, but one also hears every night a collection of chirps, croaks, and hoots that fairly falls between a symphony and a cacophony. This unmistakable ruckus, which persists until birdsong takes over at dawn, is the work of an array of nocturnal lizards and amphibians. While the local (and vocal) tree frogs eluded my gaze, the lizards on the grounds of Hotel Mocking Bird Hill were anything but shy. In fact, some were a bit too curious for their own good, like this lizard I found lounging in the dregs of my papaya juice one morning:
Gecko on glass
This gilt-eye interloper is Aristelliger praesignis, otherwise known as the Jamaican Croaking Lizard. Croakers are insectivores, which doesn’t explain why this one wound up in my glass. After I extracted my pound of flesh in the form of a few images, I set it free.
Rumor has it that croakers are extremely unwelcome in Jamaican homes but I didn’t observe any untoward animosity towards these or any other lizards during my stay! Of other lizards, there were many. Most of them were typical anole species. All of them were awesome, which may be an unscientific, overly sentimental way to describe wildlife observations but, hey, where I grew up, we didn’t have cool lizards crawling the walls!
Jamaican Brown Anole (Anolis lineatopus)
Jamaican Giant Anole (Anolis garmani) – juvenile
Tags: features, Jamaica, Lizards, West Indies
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I saw Aristelliger lar in DR – this genus has some huge geckos in it! Wouldn’t want one of the big one lurking in my breakfast!
[...] up for this very first edition of HoH is Mike Bergin of 10,000 Birds, writing about the Jamaican Croaking Lizard he found in his juice glass! Mike’s visit to Jamaica and his stay at Mocking Bird Hill [...]
Hey, I think ‘awesome’ is a perfectly acceptable term. and appropriate. I too find them awesome. nice post, cool photos !
Jamaica is a beautiful island with a lot of wildlife..but I didn’t find any in my juice….My HoH Exaggeration is to paint a snake and add legs
I sometimes wish I lived in a climate warm enough to have lizards on my walls. That’s one of my favorite things about traveling to tropical climates. Beautiful photos.
[...] The Jamaican Croaking Lizard – "Visiting Jamaica is truly a sensory experience. Not only does one see astounding beauty and feel that warm Caribbean sun, but one also hears every night a collection of chirps, croaks, and hoots that fairly falls between a symphony and a cacophony." [...]
I just came back to Jamaica as a retiree and find the croaking lizards frequenting my home. I am very afraid of them and would like to know if you know of anything that can kill them or at least keep them out of the house.
Marjorie
Please don’t be afraid of your croaking lizards – the superstition around these guys is just that: superstition. They can’t harm you in any way. In fact because they eat insects they will most likely make your home more hospitable than it might otherwise be by eating mosquitos, flies, moths or cockroaches that come in from the surrounding areas.
In fact I would encourage large geckos like these in my home when living in the tropics for just that reason.
If the croaking is truly disturbing you the best course may be to reduce the amount of cover the lizards can use to hide in the day time (shelves, clutter, etc, etc) as this will make them feel less comfortable in your home.
Tai
I am from Jamaica and I would like to point out that there is a type of anole that can change it’s color like a Chameleon. The green anole and the brown anole that you posted may yet be the same species of lizard, heck they might even be the same lizard entirely.
I am from Jamaica and i absolutely hate all lizards especially the croakers! That’s on reason why i left the island. I do not miss them at all. I know that they are harmless but they give me the creeps. Croakers totally messed up my vacation at my parents’ house a few years back. You can have them all YUCK!
I am sitting here listening to the evening symphony, and watching two croaking lizards high up on the wall singing their little hearts out. Actually, when they’re croaking, they look like they’re having hiccoughs! Jamaicans’ hostility towards lizards, frogs, snakes and alligators is just remarkable and really sad. It’s even enshrined in the school system; teachers who have inherited the irrational fear of them won’t even teach or give adequate information for children to develop an appreciation of their value to our ecosystem. So we have adults, men and women alike, running – literally – at the sound of the word “lizard” – and shrieking at the sign of them. Children kill them at every opportunity. There’s little value for the natural environment, so thank you for reminding us about what we have and mistreat out of ignorance.