Crow Eats a Mouthful of Teeth - Thoughts on the Warm Blooded - Cold Blooded Conflict

By Mel Carriere

I guess it is only fair on a blog about birds to take pause, change directions, do an about face and write about reptiles for a change.  The ornithologists tell us, after all, that birds came from reptiles, although whether they were reptiles springing up from the ground (leaping lizard theory) or reptiles parachuting down from the trees (Rocky Flying Squirrel though a mammal not a reptile theory) is still the subject of a great deal of debate.  I take no position in this evolutionary hair splitting.  Who is to say that birds didn't develop from both directions at different times, or even at the same time?  I'll coin this as the Gliding Gecko in the Middle of the Wall Theory.

I'm not ready to completely fly the aviary and wriggle on my belly over into the field of herpetology, however.  This is not necessary, because ectotherms and endotherms still interact from time to time, and from what I've seen there is a great deal of vestigial resentment among the scaled set over this secession, combined with a fair amount of enmity within the feathered community that emancipation did not happen sooner.

For example, on my route today I witnessed a Crow doing battle with a feisty alligator lizard.  I have written a lot about Crows lately on this blog; mostly about a Crow I call Clyde who frequents my yard every morning and evening, poking about for provender.  My wife has been feeding him dried mealworms as a snack because she is afraid my son might start munching them in a fit of ravenous, insatiable, late night hunger when he comes back from the bar.  Last Sunday evening Clyde graciously accepted this snack offering from my wife, although he seemed to grow tired of the stale dried grubs and sauntered off looking disappointed, perhaps having assumed she had dumped a bag of tasty Doritos on the lawn, as any self respecting upright walking monkey normally would.

Just like these upright walking monkeys that we call human beings, Crows are unfussy omnivores that will eat just about anything.  This could be why throughout the course of history Crows and Humans do not get along.  These birds compete with us for the same food, and this is why there have been great Corvid purges during which we brand them as the minions of Satan as a justification for their extermination.  Fortunately these Crow holocausts never work; the birds are just too clever and adaptable and no matter how many we kill they always come back.

Every once in a while, however, a Crow meets a bump in the road, and the Crow I saw today met his personal speed bump in an alligator lizard that he was trying to consume.  I was driving by the warm blooded cold blooded conflict in my Postal vehicle, and because I had cars behind me I couldn't stop to take a picture.  All the same, the millisecond snapshot I captured in my mind revealed a lot.

Alligator lizards are feisty little beasts and notorious biters. Any experienced amateur herpetologist schoolboy will approach the business end of this reptile with extreme caution.  The particular Elgaria multicarinata I caught a glimpse of day before yesterday was no exception.  He was a scaly package full of fierce teeth, all of which he bared defiantly upward in the Crow's direction.  For his own part, the Crow was trying to figure out a way to carefully work around those fearful fangs.  Since the alligator lizard was missing his tail, I am assuming the Crow had at least scored a mouthful of rump roast, but apparently was not completely satiated by this wriggling appetizer because he seemed determined to supplement that scaly cut of meat with some choice tenderloin from the lizard's flanks.

I don't know how the battle turned out.  If I had to bet, I would say that the lizard's teeth were too much for the Crow.  As I have mentioned before on this blog, Crows are the kings of easy pickings, and will gladly forsake a potential banquet that requires a substantial expenditure of energy for a meager diet plate that is an easy grab.  Dried mealworms handed out by my wife will do in a pinch, if the alternative is a chancy reptilian smorgasbord that means fighting around some nasty dental work.




Photo from Arachnodemon on:  http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?35013-Southern-Alligator-Lizard

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