Februari 03, 2017
- things don't alwaysgo according to plan, and when it comesto catching lizards this is often the case. now, it's fair to saythat these reptiles are considerably faster than i am. however, i'd argue that theydefinitely are not smarter than this coyote. dang it, well, weknow where he is. it was time to call in planb, the man made monsoon.
now in the desert, when hugemonsoon rains pour down, all these burrows floodwhich drives animals up out of the ground. we're going to pour gallonsof water into this burrow hopefully get the desertiguana to shoot out of there and i'll be able to catch it. it's gonna be tough, but we'renot going to give up yet. we sent our wildlife biologist,mario, huffing across the desert and back to ourvehicle where he would retrieve
our emergency fivegallon reserve of water. i gotta sit here underthis creosote bush and watch the hole incase the lizard comes out. this is literallya stakeout now. anything could beliving in that hole, so it makes me a littlenervous just laying here. but, that's my move, i guessi could sit here and practice. cause we're gonna getone shot, if we get these gallons of water hereand that lizard does pop
back up out of theburrow, if i don't get it on the first try,we're not going to have another shot at it. 45 minutes later and marioreturned with the water. all right, we're back,bring it on in, mario. mario has huffed acrossthe desert and has brought back with him, what isthat, five gallons of water? five gallons. if that doesn't get thisiguana out of that burrow
you guys will have seenyour first official miss on breaking trail. see, everybody's alwaysasking, coyote, do you always catch the animals? this is truly one of thoseinstances where i think we're release this episodeeven if i don't catch it. just because of how much work we've gone throughto try to get it. okay, you guys ready?
i'm gonna tip it and just kindastart to funnel it in there. ready, 1, 2, 3. the method i am usingto draw the iguana up from this burrowsimulates a completely natural occurrence in thedesert during monsoon season. so this is in no way hurtingthe animal or the environment. that's a lot of water. come on. something's moving.
something'sdefinitely coming up. i can hear it. got him. (whooping) did you guys see that? could you see hislittle head sticking up? - [mario] oh man,your hand's dirty. - oh my gosh, myhand is shaking. i didn't know when i shouldactually reach for him,
and we actually got it. can you guys believethat that just happened? - [mario] oh my god, yeah. - that may be themost impressive catch i have ever pulledoff in my life. - [mario] did you think you were actually going to catch him? - i did not, i thoughtit was pretty hopeless. as we sent mario back toget that giant jug of water
literally sitting here forwhat, a good 45 minutes, staring at the burrownothing coming out i figured it was connectedto one of these other holes and he was long gone. but, sometimes, ifyou wait it out, you can catch the desert iguana. now this is a lizardspecies that is very active during the day, as youcan see incredibly quick as it jumped out ofthe creosote bush
and darted into a burrow. and they're pretty docile,if you can manage to catch one of these lizards, asyou can see it's not trying to bite me, it's really justhanging out at this point. all right bring your camerain a little bit closer. look at the eyes of that lizard. now this is primarilya diurnal species, which means that they'reup during the day. that's why they're soin tuned to everything
that's moving aroundin their environments. the cryptic colorpattern on this lizard allows it to perfectly blendinto these sandy environments. and their belliesare incredibly smooth which allows themto quickly scurry across hot sand surfaces. now the desert iguana isrelated to the green iguana which is native tocentral and south america, but here in the southwest,this is the only iguana
that you're going to bump into. let's talk about thislizard's tail for a second. look at how long that is, about twice thelength of the body. now they use these tailsto help them balance in the trees when they'retrying to eat the flowers of the creosote bushbut also when they're on the ground andthey're running. they can almost lifttheir body just slightly
up off the sand and thetail works like a rudder as it helps them navigateacross the desert terrain. and one of the coolestand grossest facts about this lizard is thatthey don't only eat those delicious littlecreosote bush flowers they also eat the fecal pelletsof other desert iguanas. do you guys know whata fecal pellet it? that's a poop, you eatother desert iguana's poop. the reason that theyeat these fecal pellets
is to balance out theamount of cellulose that is in their gut. so gross, let mesmell your breath. it doesn't smell like he's been eating any turds this morning. smells like he's been eatingsome creosote bush flowers. kinda gross, but also kindaneat at the same time. well, it certainly wasn'teasy, but a little bit of patience and five gallonsof water and we managed
to catch ourselves oneawesome desert iguana. time to get this littleguy back into the wild and see what elsewe can find out here in the sonoran desert. i'm coyote peterson,be brave, stay wild, we'll see you onthe next adventure. after the first miss,we definitely considered throwing in the towel. but with a littleteamwork, we pulled it off.
and in the end, getting upclose with the desert iguana was totally worth the effort. if you thought thatwas one wild adventure check out the time i wascaptured by the collared lizard. and don't forget, subscribeto join me and the crew on this season ofbreaking trail. holy cow, all right, wellthose teeth are super sharp. (coyote howls)
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