How to Catch a Lizard

Video Transcript

"My name is Tim Cole. I'm the owner of Austin Reptile Service. We're here to talk about catching lizards. Most young boys living in the South grew up catching lizards, and usually, they would just chase them down and grab them by hand, which usually works. You do want to keep in mind that a lot of lizards will drop their tail as a form of defense. So you want to try and be gentle if you're catching lizards. Don't cause them to drop its tail. Some lizards are caught by researchers using bamboo poles or fishing poles with a monofilic line and a noose on the end of it. And they'll hang that noose up over the lizard that might be 10 or 15 feet away and catch them that way. Another way people catch lizards is if they see a lizard going underneath a rock and the rock's not too big, they'll cover the rock with a piece of cheesecloth. And they'll flip that rock, reaching through the cheesecloth, and then when it runs out, it gets tangled up in the cloth. But I think most people just like catching lizards by hand, and that's what we're going to show you an example of. So this is how we catch lizards. And I'm holding this lizard fairly tightly by the head to keep him from turning and biting, and I'm also trying to not grab a hold of the tail because if he feels threatened, he'll drop his tail and we like to keep the full tail on this animal. But this is an adult broadheaded skink. Being a male, if he gets a little bit older, this head's going to turn red in color and he'll get a little bit larger head. But this is a good, safe way to hold, you know, a medium-sized lizard."