LIONS and OTHER THINGS

MORE BITES - Monitor the Lizard

MORE BITES
….............

Things that can bite have had their fair share of me. There were the bees, scorpion and a spider and a few assorted fleas, mites, gnats, flies and mosquitoes. These are really not worth much of a mention except maybe those pesky mosquitoes.

If there is one thing that can wake me from my death-sleep, then its the whine of a mosquito. Once the sleep level of phase 'dead' has been achieved, not much will wake me. The incessant barking of a dog will eventually reach me in my state of stupor and waken me, then, the dog must really put effort into it. Yet, if a mosquito as much as sneezes within yards from me, I'll wake as if somebody has stuck a something hot somewhere, or - cold will do as well.

Can it not just creep up to me, take its few drops it thinks it is entitled to and go away. No, oh no... it has to trumpet out its arrival and challenge me to a duel to the death. Well, that is where it always ends, his blood or mine! There we go. Him under there, behind that, hiding and then finally, silence, sweet happy silence to precede sleep, glorious sleep. Sometimes there are more …..

There was the monitor lizard, about 3 feet long and we were great friends already. In the thick books I have read, the monitor lizards do not tame well, So far, my experience is that they tame very well and will follow you around and take food from your hand.

One small thing to note in case you do feed lizards (reptiles) of any kind, they do not easily take food if offered from the front of them. You have to put the food into its mouth from the front where-as from the side, it will take it with ease as it can move its head side to side, yet, to the front it is like a broomstick. One long solid stick.

Now , offering my pet monitor mince meat, I forgot for a moment and gave the mince from the side. With great enthusiasm he grabbed the mince and the tip of my one finger as well. There we were, monitor that was thinking he had a nice piece of meat in his mouth and me knowing that, that is what he thought. He was not going to let go of his prize. I waited, he pressed down and so we were for a while. The monitor does not have teeth as does a dog or cat. It has a row of small fine teeth with which it will hang onto its meal and if it needs to, it will spin its body around to try and dislodge a piece from its meal.

About ten minutes of waiting …. the monitor eased a bit and the moment it felt the blood pump through, it tightened its grip again and I waited. I had picked it up and it was now tucked under my arm as I did not want it to think it could start to twist with my finger in his mouth. Eventually I went for help, we stuck spoons behind my finger, one pulled up and one pushed down and I got my finger back.

The pressure was such that my nail was punctured right through to the bone and the bottom, amazingly, the skin did not tear. It was perforated with the small teeth marks and red from the pressure. That was it. And the monitor? He was eventually given a home at a snake park. And we both lived happily ever after.

The odd bites from smaller animals are not worth much of a mention as most are from a missunder-standing between us. Especially if you play with them as you would with a kitten and run your finger under the blanket and the kitten chases your finger. Meerkats can really give a nasty bite as their teeth are longer than a cat's.
The one animal that bit me and for whom I now have the utmost respect is a monkey. These monkeys are commonly found throughout Southern Africa and are very attractive and playful when young. They are kept as pets and almost always end up as a problem animal when older as they can grow to be about 20 years old.They are up to16 inches high and can weigh to 17 pounds. They resemble the crab-eating macac from the Malaysia.

My neighbors got a baby vervet monkey and eventually they moved to town and monkey came to me. It was a male and already a problem animal, in that he would bully the kids and cause chaos in the house and then he was housed in a cage. Every now and then he would succeed in breaking out and when I came home from work, everybody would be in the house, too terrified to come out. I would call monkey, grab him behind the neck as you would a puppy and by the tail and merrily we would go and then close him up again till he got a break-out-proof house. There I was the only one that would go in with him to clean out or up or for conversation or whatever purpose.

Life went on, then one day a man came to me and said he was looking for a male as he had a female. I was rather happy for monkey's sake and we made arrangements. The Saturday came and the man brought his whole family with him and they were all standing in front of the cage. I went in to catch monkey. He was siting on a tree-branch about waist-high and as I put my hand out to take him behind the neck as usual, he bit me through my fingers so fast that I did not even have time to move my hand away, five holes through my fingers with those inch-an-a-haf teeth of his. And he just looked away as if to say …. well, monkeys cannot swear, can they?

Needless to say, monkey stayed and the people left and I was given a monkey lesson. Do not mess with an unhappy animal. Monkey stayed on for a few more years and passed away peacefully, bachelor till the end. We still have vervet monkeys around and one came to visit a few days ago in the vegetable garden. The dogs normally frighten them away. That is the one animal I will not keep again. It really is too close to a human, as a matter of fact, they are nicer than some people I know. If the monkey bites you, at least you know why.