Anole in a Motorcycle Tire
I ran the Charm City Reptile and Amphibian Rescue for 14 years (no longer in operation).
The name of this story gives you a vivid idea, but the reality was even more unexpected. One afternoon, I received a call from some friends who had just returned from an exciting motorcycle race down in Florida. They described something odd they had discovered upon unpacking their gear.
As a former motorcycle owner myself, I knew exactly what they meant when they said the tire was knobby—those thick treads made for gripping off-road terrain and blasting through sand and dirt. This tire, though, wasn’t just gripping earth—it had been cradling something alive.
Wedged between the thick rubber knobs, they found a tiny brown anole, motionless and tucked so precisely between the grooves that at first glance, they mistook it for a dried leaf. Somehow, this delicate little lizard had managed to make the 1,200-mile trek from Florida to Maryland without anyone noticing.
I don’t know if the bike was strapped to a rack or stored in the back of a trailer. Either way, the anole had endured the entire journey without food, water or shelter – facing highway winds, temperature swings and a very long trip.
When they brought the lizard to me, I could see right away that it was in rough shape. Its skin had dulled, stretched tight with dehydration. The tip of its tail was gone, likely lost during the journey. Thankfully, anoles can regrow their tails. That wasn’t the urgent issue. The real concern was how long it had been without water.
Right away, I placed the delicate anole into a terrarium filled with climbing branches and a healthy live plant for cover. I doused the enclosure with water from a spray bottle, saturating the air with humidity. Almost immediately, the anole perked up. Slowly, it crept toward a drop of water and began to drink. And then it drank more.
This little survivor—once hanging onto life while caught in the grooves of a motorcycle tire—had endured something extraordinary. Despite the odds stacked against it, the anole clung to life through what must have been a dizzying, disorienting and potentially fatal ordeal. It’s a testament to the sheer resilience of this tiny lizard.
What truly stuck with me was the compassion shown by the people who found it. So many would have tossed it without a second thought. It’s common, unfortunately, to assume that the size of an animal equates to its worth. But life is always worthy of care. The little guy mattered.
In time, the anole bounced back. It regained strength, began to regrow its tail and eventually found a new adoptive home. This story is a reminder that even in the harshest of circumstances, some creatures find a way to survive.
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Read more by Holli Friedland.