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From pythons in the Everglades, to coyotes in the suburbs, to iguanas and Muscovy ducks in any given backyard, South Florida is a magnet for exotic invading species. Now comes the latest gate-crasher: the ill-tempered, all-devouring Nile monitor, a large African lizard that has discovered in South Florida a splendid place to seek prey and raise a family.

If you see a seven-foot lizard in your Broward or Palm Beach residence, that's a problem, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Nile Monitor lizards, native to Africa, have been popping up around the two counties -- enough times to warrant a hotline and a website dedicated to reporting freak lizard sightings. The lizard hot spot is the canal along Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach, according to the FWC, which just caught two in the area last week -- including a five-foot lizard discovered on someone's patio after it crawled through the doggy door. They killed...

A big desert lizard wreaked havoc inside a restaurant in Saudi Arabia when it sneaked into the place before it was auctioned for around $8, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Customers inside the restaurant in the central province of Ras ran out in panic when the lizard, weighing more than three kg, walked into the place, 'Al Riyadh' Arabic language daily said. The lizard had managed to flee municipality cleaners who seized it at a nearby cemetery and headed for the restaurant, apparently attracted by the smell of food, the paper said. “Customers fled the restaurant in panic before a...

From the moment Richard Nixon created the EPA in 1970, and signed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) into law, they have been the primary engines of social change used by leftists environmental elitists to destroy America. They have done so by infiltrating the EPA, and the US Fish & Wildlife (USF&W) the agency which decides what animals will be listed as endangered. Now, 28 years later, these renegade environmentalist wackos are prepared to use the ESA to shut down oil and gas operations in portions of Southeast New Mexico and in West Texas, including the state's top two oil...

While Julian Assange is famous for his conspiracy theories about the CIA, it seems his current plight has not affected his fellow tin foil hat wearers who follow British messiah David Icke. You would think that Icke's followers, who believe that the world is ruled by a secret cult of alien masonic lizards, would be supportive of Assange's stand against the Man, or in this case reptile. But a look into the Ike forums reveals that they believe that Assange is all part of the Lizard plot. Icke's cult works on the basis of connections which are sometimes pretty dubious,...

My favorite moment in every episode of the V television series is when the flesh veneer of the aliens peels away and the lizard beneath shows through. The truth comes out at last.

The worst-case scenario of the consequences of global warming - mass extinctions - appears to be a reality for lizards, according to a new report in Science. The authors found that 12 percent of local populations of lizards have already disappeared from hundreds of sites in Mexico. Furthermore, within the next 70 years, the authors predict that 1 in 5 lizard species will no longer exist anywhere on the planet, all the result of rising global temperatures. Although a growing amount of data is showing the impact of climate change on species, these lizard extinctions were somewhat surprising, said Jack...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Global warming could kill off as many as a fifth of the world's lizards by 2080, with potentially devastating consequences for ecosystems around the world, a study released Thursday said. Researchers who conducted a major survey of lizard populations worldwide said in a study published in the May 14th issue of Science that lizards appear to be especially sensitive to the effects of climate change and are dying off at an alarming rate. The loss of the lizard populations could wreak havoc with ecosystems in which they are a crucial part of the food chain, since they...

A German reptile collector has been jailed for 14 weeks and must pay a 5,000 New Zealand dollar ($3,540) fine for plundering New Zealand's wild gecko and skink populations, a judge has ruled. Hans Kurt Kubus, 58, is to be deported to Germany as soon as he is released from prison, Judge Colin Doherty ordered Tuesday. Kubus was caught by wildlife officials at Christchurch International Airport on South Island in December, about to board an overseas flight with 44 geckos and skinks in a hand-sewn package concealed in his underwear. He admitted trading in exploited species without a permit and...

CUSTOMS officials in Norway say they had arrested a man who tried to illegally import 14 snakes and 10 lizards into the country by taping the reptiles to his body. The snakes, king pythons that are large in size but not venomous, were rolled up in socks and taped to the man's torso, while the geckos were found in small boxes taped to his legs. The unusual load was discovered during a body search after customs officials found a tarantula in the man's luggage.

Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami, Florida, is dealing with a different sort of small ground invasion: the Nile monitor lizard. These invasive reptiles—possibly former family pets or escapees from nearby breeding facilities—occasionally lumber onto the base's tarmac to soak up the sun's rays. "When you have an airplane coming in to land or take off, and you have a 6-foot [1.8-meter] reptile laying on the runway, it causes a substantial human health and safety problem," said Parker Hall, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services. Agency employees patrol the runways on a regular basis to...

Conservation authorities have started to fight back against nonnative lizards that are slowly but surely destroying the indigenous insect population on the Ogasawara island chain. The islands, which lie 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo, are known as the "Galapagos Islands of the Orient" because of the many species that can be found there and nowhere else. Even in winter, the temperature on the island chain exceeds 20 degrees in the daytime. The lizards--green anoles native to the southeastern United States--seemed to have gained the upper hand, raising fears that endemic insect species could soon become extinct. To combat the destruction...

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bailout By Joseph Lawler on 1.13.09 In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Stephen Moore highlighted the parallels between today's economic events and those depicted in Ayn Rand's classic Atlas Shrugged. "Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that 'Atlas Shrugged' parodied in 1957," Moore wrote. Point taken: Rand was eerily prescient in predicting the encroachment of big government during this crisis. Then again, it...

More than 7,000 live monitor lizards, almost 900 owls—plucked and plastic wrapped for easy cooking—and other wild animals were seized in two raids in a single week by Malaysian officials earlier this month. Experts on illegal wildlife trade expressed astonishment at the huge number of rare owls seized. "It's the first time we've ever seen a big shipment like this of owls," said Chris Shepherd, a senior program officer for the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. The scale of both hauls indicates that Asian wildlife smuggling is growing more sophisticated, Shepherd said..."

Hope comes in all different shapes and sizes. Today it comes in the form of a lizard. The hope? That some day I may procreate and produce Bo Jr. I know it sounds impossible, especially given that I had my nads removed, but if a 111 year old lizard can slip one by the goalie, I should be able to figure out a way to do the same.

Lizards Show Proof Of Adaptive Change By STAN FREEMAN   Italian wall lizards placed on a tiny island in the Adriatic Sea evolved over three decades to adapt to their surroundings.     AMHERST, Mass. — In 1971, five pairs of Italian wall lizards were transplanted by biologists from their home island of Pod Kopiste, in the South Adriatic Sea, to the neighboring but subtly different island of Pod Mrcaru, where none lived, as an experiment in evolution.How, if at all, would these creatures change?Largely insect eaters, the half-foot long reptiles would find themselves on an island where insects were...

AMHERST, Mass. - One gray squirrel, its bushy tail twitching, barked a warning as another scrounged for food nearby. It was an ordinary spring day at Hampshire College, except that the rodent issuing the warning was powered by amps, not acorns.

<p>U.S. game officials seized this Fiji Island banded iguana was seized from a Long Beach, California, home.</p> <p>Jereme James, 33, of Long Beach, California, faces a single count of smuggling, according to a federal indictment returned Friday in Los Angeles. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.</p>

• He's charged, too: Police say she was seeking revenge after he abused her A West Dundee woman faces felony charges in Kane County after attacking her husband's pet lizards, killing one and severely injuring the other, authorities said Friday. A grand jury this week indicted Sara Tinsley, 37, of the 500 block of South Second Street, with one count each of cruelty to animals and aggravated cruelty to animals for allegedly throwing one of the reptiles against the wall and stabbing the other with a butcher knife. Authorities say it was an act of vengeance against her husband, who...

I was trying to put some pure acetone which I just bought for 5 dollars for 32oz into my car