Box 2
Folder 36. Lizards – Misplaced Animals
Item 1. Newspaper Articles
Transcribed Text (OCR)
GARY MANGIACOPA ARCHIVE ============================================================ Title: B2F36I1 Slug: b2f36i1 Categories: Misplaced Animals Source: https://garymangiacopraarchive.com/b2f36i1 Pages: 3 scanned, 3 extracted OCR: Google Vision API (document_text_detection) Processed: 2026-06-06 ============================================================ GIANT LIZARDS INVIDDE FLORIDA NAT-EXAMIN A PLAGUE of fle threatening both p d The gigantic cre .J. have been captured partment officials w rr. "The monitor i as Lindsey Hord told 1..e The problem is say 22181,8.37 CR L. ARNOLD 1981 monster lizards may be breeding in southern Florida, animals in the area! alled Nile monitor lizards-can grow up to seven feet long and > areas of the state. And that's got Florida Fish and Game De- erous as an alligator," Fish and Game alligator co-ordinator Liner. ord, the monitor thrives quite well on land, unlike the alligator, which must remain ear ater. "These creatur s ar...ot native to this area and have no natural predators here," he says. "There's nothing are und hat will attack them. A fox or raccoon may go after the young ones, but not the full size 1 aduit- type that we've see.." Capture Hord says the I ish and Game Department managed to captured a monitor lizard after a phone call from a ter- rified man in the Palm Beach area. "The guy didn't know what it was and was very scared of it," Hord recalls. Hord's job is usually keep- ing stray alligators away from humans so he took along a "snatch pole" - a- long stick with a spring- loaded lasso on the end. He little suspected when ●Coming face-to-face with a monitor lizard in the backyard is new Florida experience 7-foot, flesh-eating he went to the man's house monsters have been that he'd be greeted by a five- foot, 300 pound brute of a monitor crouched and hiss- ing in a corner of the man's garage. He managed to cap- ture and cage it after con- siderable struggling. found slinking in basements garages, And less than a week later Fish and Game officials | lia or the East Indies area- snared another monster in they're actually relatives of a North Miami basement.. the Komodo Dragon, the "They're not that afraid largest reptile in the world. of people," said Hord. And how did the vicious monsters get into the south of Florida? Illegal "That we don't know," says Hord. We suspect they were someone's pets and they just grew too big to be lovable anymore. "It's illegal to bring such animals into Florida. They must have been brought in when they were very small. Normally they live in Austra- "These two reports of monitor lizards are by no means our first," said Hord. "There have been many others but these are the first two that have been so well publicized. Usually we try to keep the lid on finding exotic lizards like this. Destroyed "In the past we've just had them quietly destroy- ed." Although the monitor captured in North Miami remains in the custody of Fish and Game officials, the lizard from Palm Beach has escaped, says Hord. "Any inexperienced per- son trying to catch one may get a nasty bite," he said. These creatures could easily attack a person especially a child. "They may be a trifle leery around humans," said Hord. "But when they're hungry they've been known to put their fear aside. Then they don't mind people.' "An animal like the monitor is potentially very dangerous for the wildlife around here. With no natural predators other than man they could wreak havoc with our wildlife," Hord explained. ●Bronx Zoo imported these two legally from Indonesia [PAGE BREAK] LIZARD AT LARGE ROAMING FLORIDA GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) A six-foot, 30-pound lizard is roaming around Gainesville. Bill Thacker imported the liz- ard from Singapore to sell to a zoo for $250. But Monday "it batted its way out of the cage with its trail," Thacker said. reptile-with The forked tongue, clawed feet, and a tail that narrows almost to a point -is a water monitor that zoolo- gists such as Thacker call Var- anus salvator. "There not very many of them brought into the country," so it wouldn't be hard to sell," said Thacker, 24. "If it gets hungry, it might take someont's kitten or chick- en or something. He could take up permanent residence, prey- ing on small animals." [PAGE BREAK] ROCKY MOUNTAIN HUSBANDMAN GREAT FALLS, MONT. OCT. 10, 1935 Here's That Strange Florida Monster MINE After the Florida hurricane of September 3 Photographer Louis B. Reynolds came upon this strange monster crawling ba a paved shell strewn road near Fort Myers beach. He was standing about three feet from the scaly animal when he Enapped this picture. It Is about six feet long and is shaped like a giant lizard. It has a row of spines down the back and a long-pointed tall. Reynolds went for help to capture the animal but when he returned it had disappeared.
