Baby Anole Living among Orchids

[Anglo]

I brought some potted plants inside three nights ago to keep them from freezing. This little green anole (Anolis carolinensis) was in one of the pots sleeping or hibernating. He (or she?) was up and walking across the kitchen floor the next morning. I can’t put him back outside now because we’re having an ice storm.

So I put him among my overcrowded orchids. He evidently likes that well enough as a temporary habitat because he hasn’t wandered off yet. He’s been helping me reduce the fungus gnat population. There is water available in a little dish set in one of the orchid baskets, but he has ignored it, so I’m trying to provide water by spraying it on leaves until droplets form.

He’s active during the day, patrolling from basket to basket in search of fungus gnats. At night, he sleeps in a depression at the base of a leaf or between the slats on the side of a basket.

Green anoles are native lizards. Their color changes from green to brown as needed for camouflage. We also have Mediterranean geckos (Hemidactylus turcicus), an introduced nocturnal species. Both are very common around here.