Gilligan moved into our new house back in October. We didn’t ask him in, and it was unplanned, but that did not seem to bother him any. It all started when we decided to repaint and recarpet my son’s room.

When the previous owners of our house lived here, their teenage daughter, one year older than my son, occupied this room. It was nicely decorated - if you are a teenaged girl. But my son tends toward the full boy, snakes, snails, and pitbull dog tails, and a floral motif against a lavender background was not going to cut it. So, my wife dragged me off to Home Depot, and we lugged home a couple of cans of white, oil-based primer.

I headed off to work the next day, and my wife began the process of priming the walls of the room before we could apply the final paint color. The primer gave off a heavy smell, and my wife opened a window to let in some fresh air. That’s when Gilligan moved in.

You see, Gilligan is a Green Anole (Ah’no-lee). Yeah, I know. He’s sort of gray in this picture. But he really is green. Some times. Other times, he’s a dark brown. But when we first met, he was green. Saw it with my own eyes. You see, anole lizards, like chameleons, can change their colors - although with a smaller range of hues than can the other species.

When he first sneeked in, Gilligan stayed in my son’s room for a while. But eventually, he decamped for the living room, and he’s been living there ever since. At first, my wife worried about having a lizard loose in the house. We have 2 cats and a dog too. Our cats are stone cold killers, and she was worried that one day she would step on half a lizard carcass some morning as she stumbled out of our bedroom, across the living room, and into the kitchen for that first, life-sustaining jolt of coffee.

As time passed however, we’ve gotten used to the idea of having a varicolored mini dinosaur living amongst us, and my wife finally bestowed the name of Gilligan upon him. Gilligan lives in the end table next to our couch. This picture was taken as he was clinging to the inside of one of the table’s legs. We thought perhaps that the humane thing might be to capture him and keep him in a terrarium. It didn’t seem possible that there is enough food on the loose in our house to keep him alive. So my wife called the local Petco and spoke to their “lizard guy.” He said not to worry about it, and that he sees an occasional anole loose in his own home. They get by just fine, keep the bug population down, and mostly keep out of sight. When you do see them, they often change their coloring to match the background and are hard to spot. Gilligan is a polite guest. I don’t see any lizard poop around, although I’m not sure I’d recognize it if I saw it. We put a small coffee can lid down on the carpet underneath the table, facing up, with a little bit of water in it. He seems content to stay on or near that end table.
By the way, I’m assuming that Gilligan is male. I have no real idea. I’ve done a little bit of reading about this species. The males have a colorful dewlap that hangs down below their chin, which is used for threat and mating displays. So far, Gilligan seems neither inclined to scare me or mate with me, so I have no idea if he’s got a well endowed dewlap hangin’ down or not.

My wife was so worried that he would suffer at the tender mercies of one of the cats that she really wanted to catch him and put him back outside, but it is in the 20s at night right now (today we’re having freezing rain and there are icicles hanging from everything), and he has not had the opportunity to prepare his hibernation den for the winter, and putting him out would surely kill him. So, until spring returns, I’m going to let him continue freeloading off of us. But come warmer weather and balmier nights, he’s going back outside, and I’m sure he’ll be grateful. This part of Texas has bugs galore, and he’ll do just fine - better than he’ll do indoors, where we generally discourage the admission of insects.