Gerald Durrell - Island Zoo

Now I would like to tell you about some of the reptiles I have in the zoo. A lot of people don’t like reptiles, but I find them extraor­dinary and interesting creatures, and some of them are very beautiful as well.

First of all, there is the guiana (ge-AH-na) dragon, and he is such an impressive lizard that you feel he thoroughly deserves his name. He is a rich reddish color, the shade of polished mahogany, and the big scales on his back resemble the scales on the back of a crocodile. However, you feel, when you see him, that he must be a very good- tempered dragon, for his mouth is shaped in such a way that he looks as though he is smiling all the time. The Guiana dragon has very curious teeth, for instead of being pointed like most of the lizard family, they are shoe-box shaped, with flat tops, rather like an elephant's teeth. This is because the dragon has a special diet, and he has had to develop special teeth to cope with it. In the South American forests where he lives, the dragon never moves far from water, and it is in the water that he finds his food. Sometimes dur­ing the day, but mainly at night, he makes his way to a stream, plunges into the water, and then moves along the bottom, rooting up the sand and mud with his nose, hunting for the fresh-water mussels that live there, and searching in the damp undergrowth that over­hangs the stream for any fat snails. When he has found a snail or a mussel, he mumbles it around in his mouth until it is in the right position, and then scrunches it up between his powerful flat teeth. We call the dragon George, and sometimes late at night we go down to the reptile house with a tinful of big snails for him. George is generally asleep, and we wake, him up by pulling his tail very gently. Then we empty the snails into his pond, and George plunges into the water and grabs at them. He sits there, his head just above the water, scrunching them up with a sound like somebody eating potato chips with his mouth open. George is certainly a friendly Dragon, but his table manners leave a lot to be desired.

Horned

Lizard

I think one of the most fantastic looking of all lizards is the horned lizard, that is found in the hot desert areas of North America.

They always look to me like the sort of creatures you would expect to find on Mars, with their strange, flattened, bun-shaped bodies, covered with knobs and spikes, and the extraordinary horns on their heads, that look as though they ought to be wireless masts, or walkie-talkie sets. Horned lizards can move very fast, skimming over the surface of the sand like stones on ice, and then suddenly they will stop, scrape at the sand with their feet, and before your very eyes will disappear, so that only the horns on top of their heads are showing above the surface.

They feed mainly on tiny insects, and they are especially fond of ants. It is most amusing, when we put a tinful of ants in their cage, to watch them standing there, ants running all round and over them, and the lizards lapping them up with their pink tongues, rather as a cat laps at a saucer of milk. But probably the most peculiar thing about the homed lizards is their way of defending themselves. Behind the eyes there are two little glands, and by a remarkable process, when the lizard is frightened, it manages to shoot up its blood pressure. From out of the two little glands squirt two little jets of blood. This so surprises the homed lizard's enemies that they generally leave it alone. Fortunately, our homed lizards are so tame that the last thing they would think of doing when you pick them up is to spit blood at you: they are more interested to find out if you have brought them some juicy ants to eat.

On the whole I am very fond of the toad family. I have always found them to be quiet, well-mannered creatures with nice char­acteristics, and no desire to harm you in any way. However, there comes a time when even a long-suffering creature like a toad is apt to turn on you, and the results can be unexpected.

The horned toad is found in South America, and is, un­doubtedly, the most spectacular of all the toads. Its enormous mouth, the strange little pointed spikes over its eyes, and the creamy- yellow skin patterned in red, black and jade green, put it definitely in a class of its own. Horned toads spend most of their lives buried in the moist soil of the forest floor, with just their backs and eyes showing. As their backs are so beautifully patterned with green, they are extremely difficult to see, and so any creature walking along the

Homed Toad

forest floor (even such large things as mice) fall easy victim. Before they know what is happening, they are seized in the toad’s great mouth, and, after a couple of gulps, they have disappeared.

When I was collecting animals in Paraguay, in South America, I found that the local people were very afraid of these horned toads, because they thought they were poisonous, and they refused to catch any for me. One day, however, I caught one myself, and thought that I would show the hunters how harmless they were. When the hunters were all assembled, I annoyed the toad by tapping on its nose with my finger. The toad grew more and more angry, puffing himself up and uttering fearsome gurking noises. Then he opened his great mouth, and to the hunters’ astonishment I thrust my thumb into it. That, I thought, ought to teach them that the toad was harmless.

Then, just as the hunters were all looking very impressed, the toad suddenly shut his mouth with a snap, and trapped the end of my thumb. I had never thought that a toad could bite so hard: it was just like having your finger jammed in a door, and the pain was terrific. I could not show that it was hurting me, with the hunters still there, and I had to wait until they had left before trying to get my thumb out, and all the time it was aching badly. At last the hunters went, and then I tried to get the toad off my thumb, but he simply hung on like a bulldog. Eventually, after about ten minutes, I had to put my hand in the bushes, so that the toad would think he had a good chance of escape, and then he let go and tried to hop off rapidly. I soon caught him and put him back in his cage, much to his annoyance, but it was the last time I let a horned toad bite me, because my thumb-nail turned black, and for a week it was extremely painful.

I have introduced you to only a few of the animals 1 have in my zoo, but I hope you have enjoyed meeting them. And, when you visit them, I hope that the stories I have told you about them will make you feel—as I do—that they are not just animals in cages but old friends.