July 2, 2009
Fear and Trembling and the Blue-tailed Skink
I have a small problem. If one considers an infestation of blue-tailed skinks a small problem. And by infestation I mean two or three, possibly another. My skink tolerance ranks up there with my rodent phobias.
I have no issue with your standard chameleonic tree lizard. If fact, I lived in harmony with a feral herd of about two thousand at my Florida abode, so I really had no choice. No, my issue is with the dread skink. These two or three beasts lay about my front porch and sun garden with great insouciance, as if challenging me. I would as soon have a dozen Norwegian wharf rats with human tissue in their bloody fangs sunning themselves by the front door.
The blue-tailed skink is an amazing piece of creation and evolution, however. Consider: when threatened, they disengage their shocking neon blue regenerative tails, which immediately begin writhing in muscle spasms, distracting the predator, while the skink slinks away to safety, and the grim task of growing a new tail. To my knowledge the tail does not even have to suffer trauma to detach; it's pretty much an at will thing.
That's beautiful stuff in the survivor sweepstakes.
Here's an interesting thing: when my mother was in high school in the 1940's there was a fad, wherein girls would capture your basic tree lizard, and tie a piece of thread to its thorax. They'd tie the other end of the thread to their lapel, and wear the little critter to school as an exotic piece of adornment. I'll wager they never tried that with skinks.
Here's another thing: I equate your garden variety leftist with your garden variety skink. For when leftists feel threatened, usually by facts, they pop off a piece of rhetorical writhing blue tail, which substitutes for debate, while they slink away to the safety of their preconceived notions. And that bit of writhing blue tail screams diversionary alarums like Racist! Fascist! Gitmo is a torture camp! There were no WMD's! You get the idea. But a weak and small creature must have some survival skills, after all, so I don't hold it against the leftist, or the skink. It's just their nature.
Oh, didn't get enough of blue-tailed things? Here's Burl Ives singing Blue Tail Fly. Consider it a gift. With a string attached.
I used to wear them tree lizards like earrings. You'd get 'em to clamp down on each ear lobe and walk around with them dangling and hanging on for dear lizard-life. I wore 'em into class one day in junior high.
Good times.
:o)
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at July 2, 2009 9:36 PMI guess this is a southeast thing, never having seen one. That's one ghetto-looking reptile, though. He should have some Olde Englishe lettering on his back.
Posted by: Scott at July 3, 2009 12:52 AMThat Burl Ives reminds me of nothing more than the scene when the governor jumps on stage at the end of 'O Brother Where Art Thou?'
Posted by: Scott at July 3, 2009 12:55 AMI think it's pretty.
Posted by: PeggyU at July 3, 2009 2:01 AMMy old cat used to bite the heads off the 'lil buggers, guess he liked the sport.
Posted by: Buffalo Irving at July 3, 2009 7:45 AMNever heard of or seen one of them critters before.
Good looking though.
Awww! Skinkses is teh Qte!
Your analogy to Leftie diversionary tactics is exceedingly apt. Apt enough to deserve a long life as an Internet meme.
Posted by: dicentra at July 3, 2009 9:10 PMWhy is its tail blue? What usefulness does that serve?
Posted by: PeggyU at July 4, 2009 3:36 AMThe blue attracts predators to bite at the tail, which is then detached, allowing the skink to escape, I believe.
Great comparison. And digging up Burl Ives...quite the trip back in time there. My brother and I used to check a record of his kids songs out of the library when we were very young.
Posted by: Nicole at July 4, 2009 2:40 PMDamnit, I had to use my dictionary. Insouciance. Didn't know that one.
Posted by: kerrcarto at July 6, 2009 4:01 PMThey are actually trying to show you that they are comfortable around you; and they eat buggy things... so I would prefer keeping them around and hoping they would knock down some of the fly / mosquito population
Posted by: Jay Heathman at July 12, 2009 12:50 AMA little known fact about Beryl Ives is that he attended Eastern Illinois Univ. in Charleston, Ill where he was one of a pair of book-end two-way tackles (the other being Mayor of the town and my HS American Hist teacher whose son I played football with) on an undefeated, untied and un-scored upon football team. My Mother even had a few dates with him. He was "asked" to leave after his soph. yr for certain, ahem, "irregularities" of behavior involving women and alcohol--and the rest is history.
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