This morning, the boys found a dried up lizard on our deck. They were convinced that it had just crawled up there and died. No lizard in it's right mind would crawl onto our deck - it's where the cats live. I finally convinced them that one of the cats probably killed it and brought it to the door as a gift.
I was busy baking cookies, doing laundry, putting Clarey down for a nap. The next time I looked out the window, this is what I see. They had gathered their
Herps books from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation and were trying to identify this poor, little, dead, dried-up lizard. While those books are wonderful and have spent many hours occupying and enlightening my boys, they aren't a complete guide.
So Clayton found another resource. "This is DEFINITELY NOT our lizard."
Having no luck with the printed word resources available in our house, Clayton came in and very matter-of-factly declared, "This lizard is not in ANY of our books. It's time to use the internet." We had to do a bit of searching and found in a very roundabout way the
Discover Nature section of the Missouri Department of Conservation's website. There we found the
field guide to lizards. And in the field guide, there are 13 lizard species in Missouri, we found the
broad headed skink. It was a perfect match to our dehydrated lizard. We read all about it. We learned that it eats insects and is Missouri's largest forest dwelling lizard. We also learned that it likes to live in trees and will often make it's home in abandoned woodpecker cavities. As I type, my boys are searching the trees in our woods for abandoned woodpecker cavities for broad headed skinks. The cats are with them. I'm not sure how much luck they'll have.
This morning, the boys found a dried up lizard on our deck. They were convinced that it had just crawled up there and died. No lizard in it's right mind would crawl onto our deck - it's where the cats live. I finally convinced them that one of the cats probably killed it and brought it to the door as a gift. 
I was busy baking cookies, doing laundry, putting Clarey down for a nap. The next time I looked out the window, this is what I see. They had gathered their Herps books from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation and were trying to identify this poor, little, dead, dried-up lizard. While those books are wonderful and have spent many hours occupying and enlightening my boys, they aren't a complete guide. 
So Clayton found another resource. "This is DEFINITELY NOT our lizard." 
Having no luck with the printed word resources available in our house, Clayton came in and very matter-of-factly declared, "This lizard is not in ANY of our books. It's time to use the internet." We had to do a bit of searching and found in a very roundabout way the Discover Nature section of the Missouri Department of Conservation's website. There we found the field guide to lizards. And in the field guide, there are 13 lizard species in Missouri, we found the broad headed skink. It was a perfect match to our dehydrated lizard. We read all about it. We learned that it eats insects and is Missouri's largest forest dwelling lizard. We also learned that it likes to live in trees and will often make it's home in abandoned woodpecker cavities. As I type, my boys are searching the trees in our woods for abandoned woodpecker cavities for broad headed skinks. The cats are with them. I'm not sure how much luck they'll have. 
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