Danger is this hitchhiking lizard’s middle name and Hampton Roads is its new home
VIRGINIA BEACH — Danger is this lizard’s middle name.
Not content with the repetition of every day life down south, the green anole hit the road and thumbed its way to Virginia Beach — likely hitching a ride on houseplants.
Native to the southeastern United States, though not Virginia, the reptile has been popping up in Virginia Beach recently and begun repopulating.
Green anoles reached the northern end of their natural range around the Kitty Hawk area of North Carolina, but they’ve started coming more inland and north.
“We’ve always thought maybe because of warming climates, they would shift north and naturally come to Virginia, but we have not seen that happen,” said J.D. Kleopfner. “If this was a natural range extension, it would be in Back Bay, False Cape and southern Virginia Beach first.”
But based on where they have shown up — inland and suburban areas — they most likely arrived on houseplants from the south. Their travels are a real-life version of the 2011 animated movie Rango, in which a pet chameleon accidentally finds itself on the road, and separated from its owners.
These little guys aren’t the only invasive lizards in Virginia. The commonwealth also has Mediterranean house geckos and Italian well lizards. Almost every urban city has Mediterranean house geckos, Kleopfner said. They haven’t adapted to life outdoors and need a stable environment.
Italian well lizards showed up in Northern Virginia a few years ago.
Anyone who sees these new lizards shouldn’t be afraid. They’re not dangerous and were popular in the pet trade in the 1970s. They were sold as chameleons, but could really only change from green to brown and back.
Kleopfner said anyone who has seen them should snap a photo and send it to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.