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Great leapin' lizards! Or, rather, falling lizards and snakes.
Once in a lifetime (or not), you see something that you know you will never see again. What I saw was described aptly by a nearby local as "a National Geographic moment." It happened during a recent excursion to Belize in Central America.
I was out on a Zodiac cruise (Zodiac is the brand name for an inflatable but very stable rubber boat) with five other guests from the Lindblad Expeditions' M.V. Sea Lion. With us were the ship's doctor, Gail, and one of the staff's naturalists, Sharon, who was piloting the craft.
As we headed into the Monkey River we saw, as was expected, tropical flowers and exotic birds, like the tiger egret and the black-throated tanager. We saw big, spiny iguanas and, high in the trees, the critters after which the river was named.
As the morning progressed and it got warmer and buggier, it was time to start thinking about turning around and heading back to the ship. One of the guests gently pleaded with Sharon to please take us around just one more bend in the river. Her arm did not need to be twisted. To Sharon, an extra bend is always a good idea.
We were rewarded.
Someone had, at first, spotted another iguana high in a tree. As I found it in the tree line against the morning sky, it was hanging at such an unnatural angle, I wondered how in the Sam Hill it was holding on. Gail was the first to realize the iguana was not alone.
I grabbed my binoculars when she screamed there was a snake. Sure enough, a red-tailed boa constrictor was coiled around the hapless lizard, its head in the snake's mouth, its body loosely hanging. By this time we were all screeching, while the poor boa was struggling to hold onto the iguana.
The snake held a branch above the iguana with its tail. Its body dropped from there, coiled around its lunch and ended with its distended mouth straining against the size of the lizard. (It didn't appear to be a really big snake, as far as boas go.) We watched this life and death struggle for as long as we could, but soon we simply had to get going.
As we started back, still watching, we all screeched again as the snake lost its grip on the branch and crashed and plummeted, we figured 50 feet or so, to the water's edge. We raced back to find the no-doubt badly bruised snake slithering slowly up the bank. The iguana had popped out of the boa's mouth and was perched atop a branch that was sitting in the water.
We wondered: If we had stayed a few moments longer, would they have fallen into our boat? Three of us thought that would have been really great. The others would have probably been in the water the instant the duo landed. Anyway, no such luck.
We were trying to determine the state of the lizard when the unbelievably fortunate beast turned its head, seemingly wondering, "What just happened here?"
He was still alive! But he looked to be reeling from what was a particularly bad morning for him.
We felt sorry for both creatures. The snake was still hungry and the lizard clearly dazed. Sad. But that is the way of the natural world.
Hungry boa, traumatized iguana and awed visitors parted ways.
On an unrelated note, I must mention having met the only person I have ever known who was actually attacked by a vampire bat, a local agent named Loscelle. He took us on a walk through the rain forest and mentioned the time he was sleeping in an open hut, only to awaken with two small wounds in his forehead.
He explained that the bats, rather than puncture, scratch the surface of the victim. Their saliva contains an anticoagulant, which helps the blood flow, and they lap it up. The bats' saliva also contains an anesthetizing agent, he said, so as not to disturb the victim too much, which I think is very thoughtful.