Lizards?

Earlier this year I heard that a local biology professor was responsible for releasing these Italian Wall Lizards/Podacris siculus all over the city. This explains their presence in Green-Wood Cemetery, where they definitely seem to be spreading from what must have been the original release site around the historic chapel.

I heard this from one of this professor’s former students, now a biology professor herself; she argued with her teacher about the matter, because it is insane to release non-indigenous species. The jury is still out on whether this particularly species is actually invasive, but it’s absurd to risk it.

Ben Goldfarb has just published a piece in The New Yorker naming the damn fool behind their spread. A biology professional, for f’s sake.

Goldfarb notes that one of the other places the guy released them was the cemetery in Queens where Houdini is supposedly buried: and that’s where I saw my first.

There are no native lizards in NYC, but New York State does have three indigenous species. As this idiot’s fantasy spreads, how will it affect them?