July 19, 2004
"Oplurus vs. Mabuya"
by Alberto Gonzalez Gallina

I can’t be sure about the exact words but they sounded something like: “Look Alberto, you have a couple of friends right there…Oh! they’re fighting….No! one is eating the other!!”. Well that was the reaction to one of nature’s daily stories, the hunter and the hunted. One Oplurus (iguanidae) eating another lizard, a Mabuya (scincidae) can give you a nice picture of how ravenous reptiles can be and even though this happens everyday, its always amazing to see nature on its crude form, one small link of the whole trophic chain, that spread around nature’s balancing forces. As suddenly as it happened, it was over. Just a glimpse at nature’s complexity, survival of the fittest, the strong overcoming the weak, a predator eating its prey….energy being recycled.