#4059

midsize thumbnail

After tentatively poking at this guy a couple of times, I went around the boulder to investigate something else (a huge black widow.)

When I cam back around, he had run down to a ledge and was hanging motionless by one foot, seemingly caught in a cobweb. I picked him up without any trouble.

I put him back on the rock (in a sunny spot), but he still didn't move for about half a minute. (I was worried he was in shock, or perhaps had been bitten by a spider.) Finally he skittered a couple of inches -- so he was okay.

I think it was a defensive behavior, but I'm not sure whether it was in response to me or to the cobweb.

Tags

Content
Eastern fence lizard
hand
* animal
* lizard
* reptile
Location
* Charlottesville, VA
* USA
* Virginia
Meta
free-licensed
public in gallery v1
public
super macro
to review for visibility
* licensing