Moments of Enchantment; 187; Gila Monster

Moments of Enchantment brought to you by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs and 770 K.O.B. Radio. New Mexico is full of creatures with mistaken identities. For example, take the prairie dog, which isn't really a dog, or the horny toad, which isn't a toad at all, and the jackrabbit, it isn't really a rabbit, it's a hare. So should we believe that a heli-monster is really a monster, more in a moment? Is a heli-monster truly monstrous? Curly Spanish explorers thought so. They took one look at the heli-monster of New Mexico and compared it to its south of the border cousin, the Mexican beaded lizard. They knew from experience was both venomous and dangerous. Their unsavory suspicions were for the most part correct. The heli-monster is not only the largest lizard in the United States, but also, along with its Mexican cousin, the only venomous one.

The beaded lizard's ancestors roamed the humid earth, along with dinosaurs and other reptiles millions of years ago. The modern beaded lizards, heli and Mexican, have adapted from this ancient past to inhabit a small section of the globe. They live in the semi-arid deserts of Arizona, southern Nevada and Utah, northern Mexico, and southwestern New Mexico. The heli-monster is an unusual reptile. To see him waddling along the desert floor with his brightly-studded skin, well, this lizard just doesn't look like he belongs. Gautley dressed in black and peachy pink designs, the heli-looks a bit like a big, slow-moving brought-first. The average length of an adult is about a foot and a half, whereas the Mexican beaded lizard is usually black and yellow and nearly twice as long. About its venomous reputation, experts say that its poison is saliva is mostly a defensive device, unlike a snake's aggressive fangs, which deliver pressure-driven venom. The beaded lizard's poison flows into a victim's wound from the lower jaw as it chooses. While not very aggressive, here's one beast whose bite might be worse than its bark.

To learn more about the heli-monster, visit the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Old Town, Albuquerque. Moments of Enchantment brought to you by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs. For Moments of Enchantment, I'm David Griffin.