‘Sarah, be a sport,’ I said through clenched teeth, ‘would you mind detaching this iguana from my forearm?’
By now his sharp claws had drawn blood. As Sarah tentatively unpicked the five claws of Gary’s right front foot from my arm, I was able to place him onto the already positioned X-ray plate, where Sarah held him down, allowing me a chance to attend to my wound.
Meanwhile Gary, although content to pose on the consulting-room table, evidently did not feel the same way about the X-ray plate, and so when Sarah let go of him, he immediately shot off across the table, nearly nose-diving off the end. She managed to grab him just in time, but when she once again replaced him on the X-ray plate, he repeated his kamikaze bid for freedom, before once again being firmly stopped.
‘Hmm,’ said Sarah. ‘Doctors don’t have this problem of patients running off the X-ray table! What do you want to do?’
‘This might work,’ I said, after successfully patching up my arm. I grabbed a roll of the professional bandage-tape known as Vetrap and a bundle of cotton wool from the cupboard, then rolled the cotton wool into two small balls, which I gently placed one over each of Gary’s eyes, holding them in place with a strip of Vetrap around his head, making sure that his air passages were free. It worked beautifully: when I replaced Gary on the X-ray plate he was transformed into a living statue.
‘That’s a neat trick,’ Sarah commented.
‘Yeah, one of the tricks I stored away from our brief lectures on reptiles at vet school.’ Gary remained motionless as I adjusted the setting on the X-ray machine and we left the room. ‘Well, Gary, let’s see if you’ve enjoyed a very expensive breakfast, shall we? X-rays!’ I shouted, to notify everyone, and clicked the button, before both of us hurried back.
Moments later, the beautiful image of a lizard skeleton appeared on the computer screen. I studied it for a moment, Sarah eagerly peering over my shoulder.
‘Well …’ I said. ‘I don’t know whether this is good news or bad news for Miss Rogers, but Gary does not appear to be the culprit in the strange case of her missing ring.’
‘Good news for Gary, but that would have been an absolute classic X-ray.’
‘Clearly, diamonds aren’t a lizard’s best feed.’
‘Ha ha.’
Removing Gary’s temporary headpiece, I picked him up, this time in a towel to avoid further lacerations, and carried him through to his impatient owner.
‘Well?’ she exclaimed as soon as she saw me. ‘Did he eat it, was it him, is that where my ring’s gone? Well?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t be sure what’s happened to your engagement ring, Miss Rogers, but Gary most definitely didn’t swallow it.’
‘Really? Are you sure? How odd, I was sure it was him … Where on earth can it be?’ She gently took the iguana from me, bringing his head up to hers. ‘Oh, Gary, Mummy is so sorry … Did I blame you when it wasn’t your fault? I’m sorry, but I’m sure you know what’s happened to it. You need to tell me before Daddy gets home.’ She turned back to me. ‘Thank you so much. I’m so sorry to have wasted your time, but I’m very grateful for your help.’
After she left, I returned to the prep room, where Sarah was getting things ready for the next procedure.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you can’t say this job is ever dull. Shall we get on with spaying that rabbit now?’
Half an hour later Jenny returned.
‘I’ve got Miss Rogers on the phone again. She asked for you specifically, she’s on line one.’
I picked up the phone. ‘Hello, this is J—’
‘I found it, Jon, I found it! It was under the cooker! I think Gary must have knocked it off with his tail or something.’
‘Oh that’s great news. I’m so pl—’
‘Thank you so much for your help, Jon! I can’t believe we went through all that, but I was just convinced Gary had eaten it. I’m so grateful to you – and so glad I won’t have to wear a ring for the rest of my life that had been pooed out by a green iguana!’
Iguanas: fast facts
Iguana iguana: The green iguana
Distribution: Originally found in Central and Southern America, from Southern Mexico to Central Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Bolivia and the Caribbean.
Names: A male is called a ‘bull’, a female a ‘cow’, and the young a ‘hatching’. A group of iguanas is called a ‘slaughter’.
Life span: 10–12 years.
Habitat: Iguanas are diurnal, arboreal rainforest dwellers, often found near water.
Diet: They are naturally herbivorous, eating leaves and some fruit in the wild; in captivity, kale, turnip, mustard or dandelion greens suffice.
Incubation: 90–120 days, laying anything from 20 to 71 eggs.
Growth: Hatchlings are about 3 inches long, weighing about 90 grams at birth, growing rapidly for the first 3 years when they reach sexual maturity. Growth then drops off dramatically, but they can continue to grow all their life and can reach up to 6 feet in length and weigh 9 kg.
Body temperature: Like all reptiles, green iguanas are ‘poikilothermic’, meaning they can’t regulate their own body temperature. Their temperature gradient in captivity should be 26.6–34.9 °C.
Interesting facts: In the aftermath of Hurricane Luis in 1995, several uprooted trees drifted over 200 miles across the Caribbean from Guadeloupe to Anguilla. These trees were found to be carrying about a dozen green iguanas, which subsequently started to colonize the island. Releases, either deliberate or accidental, from the pet trade have led to their classification as an invasive species in Texas, Florida and Hawaii.
Conservation: They are the most popular reptile pet in the USA despite being quite difficult to properly care for, and vast numbers will die within their first year. Their global population is unknown, but about 800,000 were imported into the USA in 1995. They are not considered an endangered species by the IUCN, but they are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, which recommends control of their trade. The major concern is the diminishing of wild populations to furnish the pet trade, and the massive welfare issues involved in it. Trade in wildlife is the second largest illegal trade in the world after drugs, with an estimated value of $323 billion in global imports of all animals in 2009. TRAFFIC is a global wildlife-trade-monitoring network that works in the context of biodiversity, conservation and sustainable development. See: www.traffic.org.
16
CROCODILE
‘An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.’
Winston Churchill
I spluttered and coughed, inhaling the unavoidable haze of the copper-red dry African dust that filled the minibus through the open window. I quickly closed it to minimize the effect. It was 6 a.m. on a cold morning in August, and we had just turned off the main road onto a dirt track that appeared to end in a barren wilderness of South African bush. The only clue that we might vaguely be heading in the direction of habitation was the dilapidated house postbox by the side of the road. My companions in the back of the minibus were abruptly woken as the change in terrain greatly increased noise levels at the same time as dramatically decreasing the comfort of our ride. Each pothole and small boulder caused the whole vehicle to vibrate and judder violently as its suspension was tested to breaking point.
In true African style the dirt track seemed interminable, with visibility being reduced substantially by the distinct dusty haze we were generating. We had already been travelling for an hour and a half when we turned off the main road for our final destination, and that leg was rapidly beginning to seem a mere prelude to our journey as a whole. We had left the comfort of our lodges in pitch darkness heading north-west from Nelspruit on today’s adventure to catch and relocate a 4.6-metre male Nile crocodile weighing in at about 700 kg.