This toad lives in my friend’s basement, and has lived down there for years.  Sometimes we wonder if it ever gets lonely.

Yes, you heard right.  George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm, is blogging from the great beyond.

Actually, it’s the organization who runs The Orwell Prize that’s doing the blogging, publishing Orwell’s diaries exactly 70 years from the day each entry was written.

And in the very first post, George describes catching a snake.

Delilah, who I think is the only person who actually visits this website, asks:  "I hope you don’t mind me asking if you know what kind of lizard this is. Just tell me if you don’t know. S’cool. "

This lizard is, I think, a "5-Lined Skink" (Eumeces fasciatus).  I’ve seen one of those here in McKinney at the park.

Thank you for sending me these pictures, Delilah!

Delilah writes:  "Do you know much about snakes? We saw a skinny 2′ green one."

That snake looks like what we used to call a ‘vine snake’ and they’re harmless.  It looks to be, officially, a "Rough Green Snake" (Opheodrys aestivus).  That’s my guess based upon the area where you found it, otherwise I’d eyeball it as a Smooth Green Snake.

Delilah writes:  "I’m attaching a picture of a lizard. I took it while walking near my house. Do you know what it is?"

I do believe this is none other than a Broadhead Skink (Eumeces laticeps).

Ever want to catch a live, wild iguana?

Easy.  Go down to Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne when the weather gets cold.  They rain from the trees, and lay dormant on the ground until the sun comes out and warms them up.

According to the Miami Herald, the locals aren’t too fond of the iguanas, complaining they munch the local hedges and gardens.  One commenter says, "If they are a pest why not cull them while they are laying around comatose?"

Dude, they’re lizards, not rats.  I’d fill a sack with them, take ‘em home, and start my own iguana ranch.

I’ve heard that snakes will swallow strange things, like, oh, alligators, and I personally saw a little garter snake trying to eat a sparrow way too large for it to ever successfully swallow.

Here, however, is a National Geographic article about a Australian Carpet Python who has a taste for golf balls:  Python Undergoes Golf Ball-ectomy

Florida veterinarian John Rossi was confronted by a seven year old girl named Finley and her pet lizard, Mushu, who she thought was giving birth.  It looked like another tail was protruding from beneath Mushu’s tail.

Rossi sedated the bearded dragon and began pulling on the second tail, and was rewarded with a pair of rubber legs.  That’s when he and Finley’s father, Jeff Collins, started laughing.

Mushu, named after the little dragon in Disney’s animated movie Mulan, had eaten a toy rubber lizard and it had passed all the way through the bearded dragon’s intestinal tract.

Rossi wasn’t too surprised, as he says bearded dragons often swallow odd things, such as suction cups and coins.  Still, this was the first rubber lizard he’d ever “delivered.”

This begs the question, what is the strangest thing your pet has ever eaten (and passed)?

If you want to see wonderful pictures of lizards from all around the world, visit The Lizard Pool on Flickr. As a photographer myself, I’m humbled and amazed by the beautiful and fun images from these globe-spanning artists. At the time of this writing there are over 1300 photos from 449 photographers. Some are so good you’d expect to see them in National Geographic.

With any luck, I’ll be adding to the photos myself. For the first time in years I plan take my camera out lizard hunting today.