Invasion
of the Invisible Lizards They can grow two feet long, render themselves nearly invisible, and snatch birds out of the air with their tongues. And they may be coming soon to a neighborhood - or a National Park - near you. by Alan D. McNarie Last January, Joanie Olds was driving in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, between the Hilo-side park boundary and the park entrance turnoff, when she had to swerve to avoid a strange creature that was ambling across the road: a foot-and-a-half long, greenish brown lizard, which walked with its chunky body lifted off the pavement instead of scuttling on its belly as most lizards do.
"I didn't know what it was, but I knew it didn't belong there," recalls Olds, a Kama'aina and long-time Volcano resident.
What Olds saw was probably a chameleon, though no one is certain which species. What is certain is that these weird-looking reptiles, with turreted eyes that operate independently of each other and skins whose cells can change color to mimic their surroundings, have established a foothold in the islands. Breeding colonies of one variety, Jackson's chameleon, are flourishing on Oahu, Maui and Hawai'i Island; another, much larger and more aggressive species, the veiled chameleon, has been discovered on Maui, and biologists worry that it may spread to other islands. | |
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