stinking skinks

There is a skink that lives in my closet. And I don't like it.

At first, when I'd open the closet door and scream (because I will never get used to seeing a skink climbing around on my clothes), it would run away. Now, it's gotten used to the screaming so it just sits there. I'm not happy about that. I liked the frightened skink better.

Then a couple weeks ago, it came out of the closet and climbed onto my pillow. I screamed at it, but it's just not scared of me anymore. So I kicked the bed. It just sat there. Clif climbed onto the bed and it moved up to the headboard.

It hasn't ventured out of the closet - at least as far as I know - since then. I'm just hoping it doesn't move from the closet to my bed. That would be extremely unpleasant.

Saturday was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Because I found a maggot in my hair. (Don't worry, no pictures of nasty stuff. Only vague descriptions so no one gets too grossed out.)

I know that the house we live in isn't exactly a fortress and that screen walls can only keep out so much of the riff-raff, but we saw a mouse a week or so ago and I was not ok with that. We bought some poison and put it out and saw a rat (thinking it was the mouse) and believed that it had somehow escaped death. Turns out, it hadn't.

Friday, our house started to stink. We looked around and couldn't find the problem. Then on Saturday we remembered that we were attempting to be mouse-murderers and looked in our little attic area. We saw a dead rat. It was huge and had obviously been dead for several days. Clif took it out (I'm sure I wouldn't have dealt with it as well as he did) and we waited for the smell to clear up. It got a little better, but it was still pretty stinky.

About 1/2 hour before Everett's birthday party (oh yeah, did I mention we were trying to get ready for a party?), Clif realized that the mouse was dead too in the attic area, under a piece of wood that was under a door. We only knew because the hole in the ceiling for the laundry room light fixture is too big and the mouse was right on top of the hole and some "stuff" from the mouse fell through. Nasty "stuff" that you don't want details about.

So, he cleaned up the mouse too. This time, I helped hold the chair in place that he had put on top of the counter in order to climb up into the "attic" (it's more like a loft above the kitchen/laundry/bathroom). We thought we had the mouse/rat problem taken care of.

Soon after, it was party time. We did all the standard birthday games, pinata, cake, presents... you know. Nothing momentous, but fun. The kids all seemed to have a great time and got really competitive trying to win the gold medals we made out of cookies and ribbons.

We chatted with the kids parents when they picked their kids up, cleaned up, tried to relax a bit and, when I was washing my hands, glanced in the mirror to see a maggot in my hair. I freaked out! I nearly shaved my head and started yelling and, mainly, went nuts trying to figure out HOW it happened.

I have two theories. One, that when I was holding the chair for Clif a maggot fell on my head out of the bundle that contained what was left of the mouse and other nasty stuff. This theory has the unpleasantness of thinking that the maggot had been on my head for many hours (about 4 or 5) including an entire birthday party, several chats with parents, the entire clean-up process, and even a short conversation with some new friends who live in Lion's Park. I don't like that thought. That is much too long for a maggot to have been on my head (it's sad when I have degrees of acceptable amounts of time for a maggot to have been on my head).

Two, that we have yet another rodent that had some tasty poison and is dropping nastiness through another hole in the ceiling. I hadn't been in the laundry room so that isn't a possibility, but there could be another one lurking somewhere in the great unknown that is our attic-ish area. This theory has the unpleasant aspect of thinking that we have another dead rodent in the house, but also is pretty unlikely since the smell is gone and it was mainly created out of my need to believe that the maggot was not in my hair for several hours.

The creatures in this house had been getting to me Saturday anyway. I saw a skink on the "clean" dishes in the dish drying rack earlier and I actually chased it out of the house screaming at it because I was so tired of cleaning only to have all the bugs and lizards crawl all over things. So it was not a good day for finding a maggot in my hair. As if there is a good day for finding a maggot in your hair.

Sunday was great though. We went to the beach and got some snorkeling in, the kids had a blast playing with all the new toys at our house (thanks to some very generous party-goers), and, most importantly, I didn't find a maggot in my hair.

But from now on, we're using traps.

Lizards in the Yard

Yesterday I decided to go outside and take some pictures of the birds. There are a couple of common birds that hang around in our yard that I want pictures of. As I walked out the backdoor a couple of lizards went scurrying away and I changed my mind and instead started taking pictures of the lizards. I was able to get pictures of two different types of skink and also of the poisonous toad that is common on the island.

This first skink is by far my favorite. In the shade it has a dark brown upper body with copper colored stripes and a blue tail. They are smaller than the other skinks that I have seen. The largest that I saw was about 3 inches long. When they are in the sun their color changes to a bright gold on their body and their tail becomes a shinny metallic blue. As you can see it is a very colorful lizard.

(Blue-tailed copper-striped skink; Tafuna; American Samoa)

I followed the poisonous toad around for a while until it hopped into a little hole in a stump. It felt safe there and I was able to get few great pictures (although I had to use the manual focus and take several shots since the frog was basically the same color as the stump). I also was able to get a picture of what I think is a Pacific Black Skink. I'm not exactly sure because of the stripes and color variation on its body. The drawing I have in my animal identification book has it as a solid black. I am assuming that it is a Pacific Black since the Samoan Skink is found only in forest habitats.

(Marine Toad; Tafuna; American Samoa)


(Pacific Black Skink; Tafuna; American Samoa)

This morning I caught this cute little Gecko. Actually they are hard to catch so the trick really is to put your hand in front of them when the are running and eventually they will get frustrated and just jump on your hand and then climb all over you. After I caught him he sat on my arm for about five minutes and we visibly noticed his color change. He then climbed up on my hair and sat on my head for about ten minutes (while I got the kids breakfast) and he changed to a dark brown color. These pictures clearly show his color change (and yes this is the same lizard). We were impressed. There is nothing more spectacular than an animal that can change its color to fit into its environment.


(Stump-toed Gecko; Tafuna; American Samoa)