Text and photos by Peter Vankevich
The Eastern glass lizard (Ophisaurus ventralis) became an object of fascination for me when I saw my first one here on Ocracoke Island.
Legless and shiny, most people who come upon one would think it is a snake, but it’s not.
This reptile is one of three glass lizard species in North Carolina and the only one that can be found on the island because they can live in salty environments. The other two species in the state are slender and mimic glass lizards.
This spring, I came upon four of them in my yard in the Wigeon Woods neighborhood, not far from the lighthouse.
I relocated them to a nearby overgrown vacant lot because I was planning to mow now that the wood sorel had bloomed and faded.
Then I started thinking: Can I have an okay looking yard and also provide a habitat for glass lizards?
I turned to the experts.
Harry Phillips, former curator of the North Carolina Botanical Garden at the UNC-Chapel Hill and has visited my yard had some suggestions. “Put in another couple of short trees that grow naturally on Ocracoke. Add a few shrubs per bed under trees and then add numerous native wildflowers.”
Another NC Botanical Garden alum, Johnny Randall, former director of Conservation Programs loved the concept. “Glass lizards are one of my favorites! My only concern is when you do mow, these glass lizards could get chopped up! He noted they are pretty fast, but maybe not fast enough so police for them prior to mowing.
I contacted Jeff Beane, the Collections Manager for Herpetology at the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, for advice.
“They are somewhat of an old field/grassland species and do pretty well in ‘poorly maintained’ yards,” he wrote in an email. “On the barrier islands their natural habitats are those areas of thick grasses, behind the dunes and maritime forest.
“They need areas with some thick ground cover and surface objects like logs for protection from predators; those microhabitats also attract and harbor their prey (mostly insects, spiders, and earthworms — grasshoppers and crickets often make up a lot of their diet.”
He also pointed out that glass lizards like to hide under objects like boards and sheet metal.
So, basically, the “junkier” your yard looks, the better glass lizards (and lots of other amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, and small mammals) will like it, he said. Brush piles are good cover also.
So, the challenge became creating a suitable habitat but not appearing poorly maintained.
I decided to give it the old college try.
Ollie Roberts, an Ocracoke School ninth grader, mows my lawn and we came up with a plan: Let’s look at this lawn like a hair style, nicely trimmed in the front and a bit shaggy in some of the back areas — a mullet, so to speak.
We walked around the yard and I asked him not to cut along the edges where my property abuts one of the mosquito control canals built many years ago.
In the back, I have a bald cypress tree and decided it would be easier to make it a naturalized area. The tree’s knees can damage a lawnmower anyway.
The large fig tree didn’t need mowing underneath and the fence along the back yard could have a buffer that wouldn’t be an eyesore.
So why create a glass lizard habitat?
One of my favorite nature writers is Douglas Tallamy, an entomologist, ecologist and conservationist and professor at the University of Delaware.
He is well known for advocating home gardens and landscaping using native plants. He co-founded the “Home Grown National Park” movement advocating that yards, gardens, schools and other urbanized area can become part of a giant, decentralized “park” that protects wildlife.
This is my modest contribution to the “park.”
A habitat like this, free of fertilizers and pesticides, will be suitable also for green anoles, Fowler’s toads and the tree frogs.
There are some caveats, as Johnny pointed out. When mowing, go slowly to avoid causing them harm. Also, cats are capable of catching them.
Ollie, who has several lawn mowing jobs, said I’m the only who wants the lawn to “look a little rough.”
To read more: Don’t be scared. Glass lizards look like snakes but they’re not
