Phil the Dragonslayer

Let me tell you a tale of two men and a lizard. The lizard in question is an Argentinian or black and white tegu (Salvator merianae).

Late one evening at my place of former employment I took a phone call from a delightful yet worried gentleman regarding, and I quote, “A bloody great lizard digging up my flowers”.

This left me a little puzzled, a lot intrigued and very keen to go and see. From the description the unsettled gentleman had given, I guessed a black and white tegu was the animal in question.

I grabbed my dear friend Phil on the way out the door and, tub, towel and stick in hand we were off.

Arriving at the lair

The address was only eight minutes away from us and I was that excited I got us there in five. Oops.

Phil, after peeling himself from the passenger seat reminded me that we do have speed limits and they don’t always have to be broken. I still, to this day, take his statement into consideration. Just not all the time.

I was out and up the drive like a whippet, Phil close behind. I stressed to Phil that we have to move quickly because a sighting doesn’t mean the animal is still there. The gentleman and his lovely wife let us in, described the situation, offered us refreshments and directed us to the garden.

Summoning every wildcraft skill I possess I assessed the dug-up pansies and boldly proclaimed “it’s not here”. Startling I know.

We were kindly informed that the lizard had stomped off next door, which happened to be abandoned and very overgrown. Brambles lashed at us and stingers stung. I mentioned to Phil that we should have brought a machete. He said we should have packed a flamethrower.

Just as we were giving up hope of finding the large lizard in an even larger garden, choked in weeds, we spotted a large compost bin.

Searching the hoard

Now, compost bin full of decomposing plant matter – very warm.

Argentine tegu on cool evening – very cold.

Very cold go to very warm, is exactly how my overstimulated little brain saw the compost bin. Phil saw me looking and asked if we should lift the bin.

I said yes.

In hindsight, I should have got the towel ready to throw over the animal’s head if it appeared to be in there. I didn’t though. Just grabbed one side of the bin and lifted it up with my mate Phil.

That’s right guys, Phil and I are both as dumb as a bag full of hammers.

Enter a startled and already uncomfortable tegu.

And what an animal, I had about two seconds to appreciate the size and scale of this beautiful lizard before all hell broke loose.

I grinned, Phil balked.

I went for the tail.

And surprisingly managed to grab it which gave me an immediate advantage over the startled and now very pissed off tegu.

Channelling my inner Steve Irwin, I managed to keep my grip on the tail and manoeuvre the tegu to a spot where he had sufficiently tired himself out and I had a good position to go for the head.

This worked too. I’d pinned him, and it was indeed a him, nearly five feet of him, had a solid grip on the base of the tail and now had him behind the neck.

Awesome.

At this juncture in the tale it's important to note two things. Young tegus possess the ability to perform caudal autotomy — essentially fracturing and shedding part of the tail as an escape response. Although this appears to be encountered less commonly in large adults, grabbing any tegu by the tail carries risk and isn't something to do casually.

Secondly, tegus, like other lizards, rely heavily on anaerobic metabolism during short bursts of intense activity. Fighting, fleeing and forced restraint can rapidly produce substantial lactate accumulation and disturb normal acid-base balance. Recovery takes time, and in reptiles that recovery is strongly influenced by body temperature.

Translated into English: we'd just made a cold, frightened lizard fight like hell. Now we needed to get him secure, warm and settled as quickly as possible.

How to train your dragon

Still grinning, I picked up the now annoyed but chilly tegu, instinctively pulling him close to my body to prevent him dropping or squirming too much. Phil immediately saw my mistake and chuckled a warning to me –

“Think that’s a good idea mate?”

I looked at him quizzically and when the first claw pierced the flesh on the inside of my forearm I understood the warning. When the second, third and fourth claw slid into the meat of my chest I really got the point Phil was making.

Phil wrapped the distracted tegu in the towel, and we got him into the tub, secured the lid and we were done!

Thanks to Phil’s quick thinking I was saved from more scars and a bollocking off Penny for not being careful. Although, and quite proudly, I still carry a scar from the tegu on my forearm.

Next steps

First, I dropped Phil home, proclaimed him the Dragonslayer and went straight round to Penny’s. We weren’t living together at the time, and I rocked up with a five-foot tegu that was cold, dehydrated, covered in stuck shed and only slightly less angry than he was before.

Penny knew the drill and ran him a shallow, appropriately warm bath. We watched him drink, saw him poo and gently worked away the remaining stuck shed.

Despite being a little on the skinny side, underneath the dehydration and stuck shed he wasn't in bad nick at all.

I towel dried the now fairly content lizard, put him back in his tub and took him home for the night.

In the morning the fun begins. I’ve got to build this guy temporary housing.

Home, sweet home

The following morning at work, Phil and I had a job to do. We had been gifted, a few months previously, a 5x2x2 foot enclosure.

This would do in a pinch.

Heavy 150-watt heat lamp, Ferguson zone three UV exposure, a full 12” of substrate, logs, underground hides, slate basking spot, food bowl and gargantuan water bowl.

We got it all put together in record time, set the tegu’s thermostat, worked out heat and UV timings and in he went.

I stress; this was not the enclosure this animal could live in long term.  This was merely interim housing to keep him safe and within temperature and humidity gradients, short term.

I left him a couple of hours to explore and get himself warmed up, then I went looking for lunch for him. Fruit, quail eggs and some lean chicken would do to start. All of which I had on hand thanks to some resident red foot tortoises.

Lunch was served.

And he inhaled the first few items so fast it defied both the laws of physics and digestion.

He crunched up the eggshells, gulped down the chicken and rounded it all off with some sweet fruit. Not a bad start.

I checked temperatures and fiddled with humidity, checked his dug down burrow hide, his basking spot and even made sure his water wasn’t overheating. It all looked good. The tegu himself was watching me, but it was a mutual glare we had going.

There was something very different about the way this animal watched me. Not the vacant stare I'd become accustomed to from a crested gecko or royal python. His eyes followed me around the enclosure. When I moved, he watched. When I approached, he watched. When I brought food, he definitely fucking watched.

Maybe he was figuring me out. It certainly felt like it.

I'd gone from “bald predatory monkey” to “food-providing bald monkey”. Definitely a promotion.

 The search

This is where I get stuck, the fact I have a website of my very own, Facebook and a TikTok account is frankly, a miracle.

I am not tech friendly. If I was an Avenger, I’d be the Hulk.

But don’t worry, Penny to the rescue. She plastered the tegu all over the internet and had her many friends pass it around too. It got shared as far as Scotland, but let’s be honest, there’s no way a tegu is catching the train.

A mere 5 days later, thanks to Penny and her internet sorcery a young man with green hair pushed a photograph into my face.

Literally.

The photograph was attached to a homemade missing-animal flyer. And pictured right there was the tegu Phil the Dragonslayer and my little old self had rescued seven days earlier.

I checked the head stamp, the separate markings down the sides and back and, reluctantly, handed him over.

This came with all of the advice I could give. I went overboard. Care sheets, diet plans, behaviour advice. Everything I could think of.

The reason behind this mad panic to tell him as much about the animal as I could?

He told me how the tegu had escaped.

This particular young man and his mother didn’t know that tegus could climb, so when he was placed in his topless outdoor enclosure, he just walked out. Pretty much.

Hence the panic.

The end

The largest tegu I’d ever met and one of my first “get it yourself” rescues, left my care.

Phil was visibly upset. He’d been as much a part of the tegus rescue as I was, and he wasn’t impressed with the animal’s escape.

He wasn’t the only one.

But what could we have done? We have no right to confiscate an animal. I only have responsibility for the animals in my care. And he already had an owner, so off he went.

Two months later, we heard from a local rescue that the tegu had escaped again and been found two days later. He had suffered a wound to his belly in circumstances unknown which, we were told, had been left untreated.

The tegu died under veterinary care shortly afterwards.

I was devastated as was my mate Phil. Penny didn’t take the news well either. No one who met the big guy did.

A sad ending.

Phil didn’t slay the dragon.

Life did.