Posted on: Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Skink slinks way to Manoa home
By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer
A Manoa family captured a 2-foot-long illegal lizard that was perched on their driveway wall last week after one of their sons saw it and thought it was an iguana, according to the state Department of Agriculture.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser The green reptile was spotted on a wall in the driveway of a Keahi Place home at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, according to a statement released by the state yesterday.
The family used scoop nets, similar to the type used to catch fish in tide pools and freshwater streams, to nab the lizard.
The family then called police and inspectors from the state Department of Agriculture.
The Solomon Islands skink is native to the South Pacific islands' rain forests. They are most noticeable for their large, prehensile tail, which they can use like a monkey to grab branches, to climb, or to provide stability.
The lizard is nocturnal and subsists on a diet of leaves, fruit and other vegetation, according to the state.
No one knows how the skink got into the state, but agriculture officials said it is illegal.
Individuals who have illegal animals are encouraged to turn them in under the state's amnesty program, which provides immunity from prosecution.
Illegal animals may be turned in to any state Department of Agriculture office, the Honolulu Zoo or the Hawaiian Humane Society, with no questions asked and no fines assessed, state officials said.
Anyone with information on illegal animals is asked to call inspectors at the state Plant and Quarantine Branch at 832-0566 or the PEST Hotline at 586-7378.
Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8110.
The lizard, which looks like the creature that burst from the chest of an unsuspecting space prospector in Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic "Alien," has been identified as a Solomon Islands prehensile-tailed skink.
Keevin K. Minami, a land vertebrate specialist for the state Department of Agriculture, Plant Quarantine Branch, yesterday showed the Solomon Islands prehensile-tailed skink that a Manoa family found on its driveway wall last week. Scoop nets were used to nab the lizard.
