Blue Belly

I was sitting in the shop on a quiet morning when something started moving among the cellos over in the rental section. To my startled ears, it sounded as if it were probably the size of a mountain lion, and I wasn't too eager to go see what it was. However, if you look at the cello on the left in the picture below, you will see that it was somewhat smaller than a mountain lion.



We have a lot of these little lizards around here (but usually on rocks; this is the first time I've ever found one on a cello case). I've always known them as "blue bellies". You can find the scientific name and a nice picture of the reason for the common name here.



I wasn't sure I could catch it, and was pretty sure that customers would not be thrilled if it should happen to resurface later so I carried it outside, cello and all. If I had been thinking, I would have taken these pictures out in the sun instead of in the shade with a flash, because when he finally hopped down off the case and ran away, I noticed that some of those greyish spots on its back gleam bright blue in the sunlight--quite pretty, really.