Deep within the Everglades, a voracious reptile with engaging noticed scales is amongst one of many state’s most worrisome invasive species. The Argentine black-and-white tegua big lizard that may develop as much as 4 toes in size, has already proliferated extensively all through South Florida. It’s additionally popped up all through the southeastern U.S., posing a possible menace to native species and farmers.
The creatures, native to South America, are omnivorous, consuming absolutely anything with dietary worth they will match of their mouth. They’ll chomp on the eggs of ground-nesting animals equivalent to birds and reptiles, together with endangered sea turtles. They’ll snack on doves and different small animals. They’ll snag strawberries and different vegetables and fruit that develop low to the bottom.
And they’re extraordinarily hardy, making their unfold tough to regulate or scale back as soon as the species turns into established. However, recent efforts to restrict the animals’ inhabitants within the Everglades and Georgia appear to be efficient.
While tegus have been breeding in South Florida for greater than a decade—after escaping captivity or being launched by pet house owners—they’ve unfold to not less than two counties in Georgia in recent years. (Read why it’s best to by no means launch unique pets into the wild.)
The reptiles have additionally been noticed in 4 counties in South Carolina, the place biologists suspect they could be reproducing. In response, the state enacted a ban against pet-ownership of the reptile in 2021. In 2022, Georgia passed a law regulating—but not outright banning—tegu ownership. There have additionally been remoted studies of their presence in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, in addition to established populations in Central Florida.
For those that wish to hold unique animals, clever and docile tegus make for sought-after pets. Most within the U.S. are the product of American breeders, however between 2000 and 2010 alone, greater than 79,000 reside tegus have been imported from South America, says Amy Yackel Adamsa biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey learning the animal. While solely a tiny minority of the animals escape or are launched, biologists consider the issue is worsening.
If many extra animals are launched, “there is the potential for a very large population in the wild,” Adams says.
A 2018 study conducted by the USGS used details about tegus in South America to foretell their doable growth within the U.S. According to Adams, “the entire southeast portion of the United States is at risk. Much of this area has a climate that is suitable for tegus.” As of but, there are not any official estimates of what number of tegus reside within the U.S.
Tegus do greatest in upland forests and grasslands, particularly in areas that obtain substantial seasonal rain, equivalent to Florida’s hardwood and subtropical pine forests. As local weather change causes tropical and subtropical climatological zones to shift north, the vary appropriate for tegus in North America might also widen, Adams says.
Researchers are most involved about tegus’ predatory, egg-eating habits. In Venezuela, they’re identified for sneaking into rooster coops to steal eggs, incomes them the identify the rooster wolf, “the chicken wolf.” U.S. poultry farmers must be on guard.
If tegus proceed to disperse throughout the Southeast, Adams says, they might threaten many animals that nest or reside on the bottom, together with the eastern indigo snakewhich is listed as threatened beneath the Endangered Species Act. Adams additionally worries that they could eat the eggs of gopher turtles—one other threatened species—American alligators, American crocodiles, and extra.
Can they be stopped?
Tegus are hardy, in a position to face up to colder temperatures than another reptiles as a result of they will elevate their body temperature as a lot as 18 levels Fahrenheit above the ambient temperature. If it will get too frigid in winter, they will brumate, the reptile model of hibernation, changing into sluggish and hiding out in burrows they’ve stolen from gopher tortoises or different burrowing animals.
They can get better shortly from threats, equivalent to searching. “In the 1980s, the tegu was the most exploited reptile in the world,” says Lee Fitzgeralda professor of zoology at Texas A&M University. During that point, some two million tegu skins have been exported from Argentina annually for the leather-based commerce. “Yet nowhere were they hunted to local extirpation,” Fitzgerald says.
To curb tegus’ entrenchments and additional unfold within the U.S., wildlife officers and others in states the place tegus have taken maintain are looking for options. (Read why Florida has an invasive species downside.)
In 2020 alone in South Florida, traps set by the USGS captured greater than 900 tegus close to Everglades National Park. According to the company’s information, efforts to take away the animals from managed areas are beginning to bear fruit: Abundance of the core Everglades inhabitants of tegus has seen a slow but steady decrease. Biologists hope to copy these efficient methods elsewhere.
In Georgia, state biologists have been working to entice tegus in Toombs and Tattnall Counties, west of Savannah, and report that they’re discovering fewer of the animals. Daniel Sollenberger, a herpetologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resourcessays the state could have caught the tegu downside in time.
“We’ve been trapping them for a couple of years now,” Sollenberger says. “We brought in around a dozen last year and about a half a dozen this year. It could be that there are fewer of them now, at least in that location.”
Finding new houses for tegus
Part of the answer in Georgia has been to have interaction state residents in consciousness campaigns, encouraging them to report tegu sightings. The Georgia Reptile Society has a Tegu Task Force, by which residents can submit photographs of suspected tegus for identification. Once they establish a tegu, the society’s volunteers entice the animal and produce it to a rescue facility. They are then given to individuals who need them as pets.
“We have indeed seen an increase in surrenders of Argentine black and white tegus,” says Daniel Wolst, vp of the society. He attributes this uptick to the 2022 Georgia legislation that require licensing and microchipping of all captive tegus, fairly than from a rise in wild tegu populations. (Read why persons are so taken with unique pets.)
“We do everything we can to get the animal, capture it, and try to rehome it,” says Justyne Lobello, former president of the Georgia Reptile Society.
“We want to help take them out of the habitat as humanely as possible. It helps that we have a long waiting list of people who want one as a pet.”
Nonetheless, the easiest way to repair the issue is by stopping their unfold to the wild within the first place, specialists say. Some states equivalent to Alabama have enacted legal guidelines barring the animal’s import, and others could observe go well with. Meanwhile, a number of biologists have cautioned in opposition to proudly owning these animals in any respect.
“Tegus are incredible animals which form long bonds with their keepers, and we want to encourage responsible keepers to work with them while also minimizing and, if possible, reversing the damage done by irresponsible keepers,” says Wolst.
“It wouldn’t be honest to say the situation is nearly solved, but organizations like ours and similar private groups, as well as local agencies, are working towards the best solution for all involved.”
This story was initially revealed on November 18, 2020. It was up to date to incorporate new info on November 8, 2023.
Rebecca Renner is writer of the brand new e book Gator Country.
