I caught him easily and herded him into a small plastic terrarium I'd brought with me to Hawaii (I love catching critters so I often bring my small terrarium with me on trips). I didn't encounter any trouble getting him past security... This was before the 9-11-2001 terror. It probably wouldn't work now. But back then, I just walked up to security and sent everything through the x-ray machine except my little brown paper sack with the terrarium in it. I walked through the metal detector carrying my bag and before the person manning the gate could even inquire or protest, I smiled broadly and said to him, "I have my pet in here. Do you need to see him, for security purposes?" It helps, I suppose, that I'm a girl and have learned to take pains at the airport to not look much like a troublemaker. If I was a boy and was in the habit of wearing camoflauge pants and a black Metallica t-shirt and had a scruffy beard, I would probably have caught flak for my critter. But as it was, the man at the security gate just looked curious and said, "Er, sure..." and I reached in and, murmuring embarassing endearments to my "pet", lifted the terrarium out of the paper bag and said, maternally, "He's just a baby and I don't want him scared by all the movement and noise, so I keep him in this bag. Isn't he just the sweetest?" Here is a photo of Baby Nikolai.

I was motioned quickly through. No normal person wants to hear smooshy endearments about a lizard, much less be prompted to agree with the smooshy endearments.

I named the little lizard Nikolai. As he was so tiny, I kept him in his own terrarium until he got big enough to be safely housed with Scooby. I didn't want her to accidentally mistake him for a particularly monsterous cricket and chomp on a leg or something. They kept spooking each other for the first few weeks or so, but now they are used to each other and sometimes I see them interacting, which is kind of strange. Interspecies interaction in lizards is usually limited to one critter eating another, but I see them exchanging head-bobs from time to time. It's... well, it's cute.

Little Nikolai is now all grown up. He has reached his full adult size, but has not yet realized his potential bulk. He will continue to get "chunkier" with muscle. The boys tend to do this, but not the girls. The boys need bulk to throw around at other boy anoles, but the girls must be sleek and quick if they are to evade predators long enough to lay their eggs. If you want a lizard you can take out of the terrarium on occasion, then a female anole isn't for you. The girls tend to remain skittish all their lives. The boys, on the other hand, get complacent with maturity; with handling they make excellent pets. I've had many many anoles as pets... over a hundred, I'd say. They are an area of expertise. As such, I'll try not to carry on.

So that's little Nikolai. I don't really take him out of the cage, so he isn't very tame. I've mostly grown out of reptiles. I now prefer pets that can fend for themselves. As far as reptiles go, green anoles need little to no care besides food and water. Unlike iguanas, they do not have smelly or messy poop, and they do not defecate in their water. I am content to just provide Nikolai with lush and interesting surroundings, lots of good food and water, and watch him live his life. In the wild, the life expectancy for anoles is about three years. In captivity, a pet store anole can live for four or five years. A wild-caught lizard can see six. Survival of the fittest and all that.

Nikolai is getting on in years. He doesn't have as much muscle anymore and something odd is happening to the bone structure in his jaw. It's not the metabolic bone disease that reptiles get when they don't get calcium, D3 and UV rays. He gets plenty of all that. He's also not eating as much and is getting a little bony. Now that he is all alone in the terrarium, he won't be getting as much exercise. Maybe I should start taking him out of the cage more often and encouraging him to leap about.