chuckwalla

[prettygoodword]

chuckwalla (CHUHK-wah-luh) - n., any of five iguanid lizards (genus Sauromalis) of arid southwestern US and Mexico.



Thanks, WikiMedia!

The pic being the common chuckwalla (S. ater), the kind we see around here. They can get a bit bigger, but not as big as some iguanas. This is, I believe, a repeat word, but it fits the theme -- and besides, the name is fun to say aloud. We got the name in 1893 from American Spanish chacahuala, from either Cahuilla cháxwal (spoken in southern California) or Shoshoni tcaxxwal (spoken throughout the Great Basin), both Uto-Aztecan languages. [Sidebar: the Comanche left the Great Basin for the southern Great Plains soon after acquiring horses in 1705, and while their language is no longer mutually intelligible with Shoshoni, both peoples still consider each other relatives.]

---L.

Comments

[guildrone]

Huh, what a coincidence! I was just looking into these things the other day as a possible vegetarian pet option—albeit, mostly out of curiosity for the moment since my mom can’t stand much of anything scaly. They seem plenty charismatic, in any case!

[prettygoodword]

Hadn't realized they were in the pet trade. Huh! (Our household scaly resident is the kid's ball python, who are decidedly not vegetarian.)

[pauraque]

What a cutie! I'd never seen these as pets either, which surprises me a little as I had a pet snake for many years and spent a lot of time at the local exotic pet shop where they had all kinds of herps.

[prettygoodword]

I've pet-sat a couple lizards, but never went looking for them (was always more interested in snakes and tortoises) so haven't looked at the options there in any detail. So I'm not terribly surprised to hear of a lizard pet I hadn't known about.

[jesse_the_k]

So much fun to say!

It's got sounds which work well as an oath. Spittering chuckwalla, what terrible news!

[prettygoodword]

lol 😆