Gear review: the Fish Pen

Are you sure you don’t want to take a lizard pole?” – “No way, we’re on vacation, not field work”.

teasing me

But once arrived on the lovely Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico I just couldn’t get any of the anoles perching on about every single palm tree to dewlap for me. I’d speculate about their dewlap colours – they did look like A. sagrei, but how could I be sure without flipping out their dewlap? And if I did, would it be red or orange, and how broad would the yellow margin be?

It was as if they were mocking me with their presence, knowing that I was pole-less. On the next trip to the local supermarket, however, I saw and immediately grabbed a small package that read: “Fish pen, as seen on TV.” It was a tiny telescopic fishing pole, complete with hooks, reel and line, that can clip to your shirt like a pen. For MXP 200 (ca. $20), I just had to buy it. Although I wouldn’t recommend to hunt any large or skittish lizards with it (it’s a short pole), it proved to be quite effective to satisfy any spontaneous dewlap-flipping cravings during vacation.

Performance of the Fish Pen

About cybokat

Kat is a Lecturer in Ecology & the Environment at the University of Hull. She is vagabonding through real and virtual landscapes in search of answers to diverse scientific questions
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1 Response to Gear review: the Fish Pen

  1. Sven Vogler says:

    Hi!
    Where did you find the sagrei?
    On my travels to the Yucatán I mostly found them confined to human settlements along the coast (e.g. Champotón) while a bit more inland, even in the backyards of Mérida-City I found A. lemurinus and sericeus most common, being accompanied by the more A. rodriguezii the more rural you go.
    Greetings from Hamburg!
    Sven Vogler

    Editor’s note: see this previous post

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