Tegu takeover: More giant, exotic lizards are being spotted in Georgia

Giant, exotic lizards are on the loose in Georgia, and their population may be growing.

While they typically don’t attack people, they do pose a threat to our state’s wildlife and agriculture.

These South American reptiles are called tegus and the state wants them gone. Channel 2’s Bryan Mims went to an area of southeast Georgia about three hours from metro Atlanta to see efforts to take down this “tegu takeover.”

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Cell phone video shows one of the strange lizards all cranky from getting caught in a cage.

It’s one thing to see it way back in the woods, but curled under your couch?

“And that thing looked really huge to me, and it was because I’m four foot eight and it’s three and a half foot or something,” said Lanell Oliver.

A tegu hid under her couch outside Reidsville.

The lizard had been lurking in the carport.

She summoned her son and grandson to get rid of it.

She stepped outside to watch but left her front door cracked open, and the lizard entered.

“He found him under the couch that I was fixin’ to go and relax and watch tv. Now this would have been a story to tell if I had done that because I’d had a heart attack right here,” said Oliver.

Her son carried it outside by the back of its head, and her grandson Paul shot it dead.

“Well, I just figured it would be fun to catch him. I didn’t want no more of them,” said Paul Oliver.

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In Georgia, it’s open season on these South American black lizards with white speckled bands, forked tongues and whiplike tail.

A male can reach more than four feet long and weigh 20 pounds.

“That’s just a regular chicken egg,” said Jim Gillis a supervisor with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as he demonstrated how he catches a tegu.

He sets traps around Tattnall and Toombs counties where tegus have taken off.

The first sighting came more than a decade ago and Gillis figures up to 50 of them have been caught or killed in the two counties.

But how did they get here?

The widely accepted theory: someone had them as pets and bred them, which is now outlawed in Georgia.

“Well, honestly, we think someone just released them here, released a male and female,” said Gillis.

And they have reproduced.

A tegu can lay more than 30 eggs a year.

“So, what is it about the Georgia environment, the terrain, the ecosystem that makes them succeed and thrive here?” asked Mims.

“It’s very similar to their native homes, so they’re from Argentina, Southern Brazil,” answered Gillis.

Lance McBrayer is a herpetologist at Georgia Southern University who is documenting the spread of tegus.

He has about a dozen carcasses in a chest of ethanol.

“They eat just about anything,” said McBrayer.

And that’s the problem.

Tegus love eggs like those of the gopher tortoise, a protected species in Georgia.

They devour eggs of ground-nesting birds.

“We’re also concerned about any introduction of disease that’s a potential to our native fauna. And then there’s the possibility that they’re introducing parasites,” said McBrayer.

“It is legal in the state of Georgia to euthanize them or put them down. And we encourage it and educate the public on that,” said Gillis.

And there has even been an occasional tegu sighting in metro Atlanta.

“Virtually all of those are probably one-off releases or escapes of a pet,” said McBrayer.

Richard Smith shot and killed two tegus in his yard.

One was sunning near his A/C unit, the other lay not far from his chickens.

“I never walk outside that I’m not looking, covering the ground, looking and trying to see. You never know when you’re gonna run across one and they’re sneaky now,” said Smith.

Sneaky, a little creepy and definitely not from around here.

But they have made themselves right at home and might just be here to stay.