Kathy, I know it wasn't funny at the time, but your experience made me laugh.

Houston, thanks for the link. It was very interesting to read about them. They and the anoles are fairly new to Texas. I remember seeing the first anoles in about 1970. They might have been here before then, but I didn't see them. I enjoy having them both. Another one I see all the time has been around for a long time, a grey spiny lizard, commonly called fence lizards.

We used to have a lot of anoles (similar to geckos, but green), but since we've cut our big tree down, don't see as many, but there are some out there, as well as in the house, and between them and the dragonflies, haven't seen a mosquito all summer, love them!

Back in the late 50's and 60's you could buy the anoles and small red eared slider turtles at the State Fair. The anoles came with a piece of embroidery thread around their neck to make a collar and lead with a safety pin on the end, and you could pin them to your shirt or blouse. Of course, they were really good at slipping out of that little collar, so they didn't last for long. You all will think I am crazy, but where we live we didn't have anoles in the neighborhood (too many chemical users) so I went to Petco several years ago and bought, yes I said bought 3 anoles and let them go in the back yard, and now I have a nice population. I get new little ones every year. I can remember anoles in East Texas back in the 50's and 60's out at our country property, so I know they were at around back then.

We used to have a large population of the house geckoes-- after summer 2011 we didn't see one at all until a baby this past week.

We haven't had quite as many geckoes this year either. I thought it might be the cat. They come to the light at night and the cat is there waiting. I hate it when they don't make it all the way in when someone comes in or out of the house. Yuck. I've got a couple of flat geckoes to pry off the door frame right now.

We have a 50's pier and beam house. They come up through the cracks. The cats have figured out the popular spots. I save as many as I can. I agree they look like fetuses with those fingers.

I think we have a nice population of american anoles and the spiny lizards. The latter look like pecan tree bark then they run really fast. You can find them hiding on the wood fence next to the bougies. Nature is by nature populated with opportunists!

Plenty of anoles but no visible geckos, although I do hear chirping, possibly a froggy. They are great but they are also followed by a curse (as far as my wife is concerned), they are snake-snacks. Our house was empty for a year before we bought it, the fire ant population was through the roof. So was the anole population, and so was the snake population.