Hitching a ride
The weather had been sunny and warm when Eddie left Florida just the day before. But now it was dark and cold inside the truck. Eddie held on — the only thing he could do — not even knowing where he was going. By the time the truck reached its destination in southeastern Pennsylvania, the cold had nearly taken its toll. When they finally found him, Eddie’s body was nearly lifeless. Would he make it?
Happily, Eddie recovered and is now enjoying life in a beautiful new habitat, full of light, lush with ferns, warmed by a heat lamp, and with a constant supply of water and meal worms — enough to satisfy a little lizard unwittingly transported out of its environment. Eddie is a brown anole (uh-know-lee), native to the Caribbean. He had apparently been minding his own business, living his little lizard life among a batch of poinsettias. There was no way he could have known that the plant he was on would be loaded on a truck with hundreds of other plants, destined for florists’ shops here in Pennsylvania.
Last week I got to meet Eddie, as he was dubbed by his rescuers. The Phoenixville florist who owns the shop where Eddie ended up, cold, dark, and lifeless looking, immediately called a mutual friend who has been rescuing wildlife her whole life. With some warmth, food, and water, Eddie bounced back, and is now looking at living out the rest of his three- to fiveyear lifespan in a protected environment.
Why tell this story? In a recent column about the Spotted Lanternfly, I mentioned that this destructive insect arrived in the United States in 2014 in a shipment (of something else!) to Berks County. So many non-native pests have come to us this way, tiny and unnoticed in a vast collection of goods, or sometimes attached to the transport itself. It would be hugely cost-prohibitive to check every single plant, every leaf, every container, or to scrub every hull. And so, we end up with species that are innocuous in their native habit, but that can sometimes become invasive here.
In fact, if you take a look around and do some simple investigating via the internet, you’ll discover that many of our most common and beloved garden and landscape plants are not native, for example, forsythia, lilac, and daffodils, Norway maple and Japanese maple. Not all non-native species are going to become invasive. The challenge is that we usually don’t know until it’s too late. And so, our landscapes — both personal and wild — continue to change with each new arrival.
Back to the lizard . . . Even if Eddie were to somehow escape into the wild, he wouldn’t survive the winter, and there are no other anoles around for him to mate with. So, there’s no chance that his presence will start a surge of invasive lizards here. In fact, he’s just like any other anole that people would keep for a pet; he just bypassed the pet store. Still, Eddie’s story is a cautionary tale of how easily it can happen.
Note: The anole species has its own immigration story. It was introduced into southern Florida from the Caribbean decades ago and has been making its way north ever since. It is now common in both Florida and Georgia, and has extended its range west to California.
Pam Baxter is an avid organic vegetable gardener who lives in Kimberton. Direct e-mail to pamelacbaxter@gmail. com, or send mail to P.O. Box 80, Kimberton, PA 19442. Share your gardening stories on Facebook at “Chester County Roots.” Pam’s book for children and families, Big Life Lessons from Nature’s Little Secrets, is available on Amazon, along with her companion field journal, Explore Outdoors, at Amazon.com/ author/pamelabaxter.