Samantha Johnston, the executive director of the Colorado Press Association, put a clear vase under the faucet to get some water for her plant in her office.
What she got instead was a lizard.
“He literally flopped out of there,” she recalled.
At first, she thought it was a bug of some sort that uncurled itself and ended up skimming along the water that ended up in the vase.
But it was reptilian in looks — definitely not an insect — and an inch long at most.
Nancy Burkhart, the executive assistant at the association, decided it’s an alligator. She named it Clyde.
It looks like a miniature alligator, sure enough, although that’s not probable since alligators are 8 inches long when they hatch.
Stacy Chesney, the spokeswoman for Denver Water, was skeptical.
“Checking in with my folks, this is definitely an unusual situation,” she said. “We haven’t had anything like this before. It’s likely that it crawled in versus coming through.”
For one thing, the pressure at which water is pumped would kill a little — or large — lizard. For another, Denver Water’s meters contain screens that remove particulates, including, if necessary, lizards.
Regardless, Clyde lives. Johnston took it to Scales ‘N Tails on Wadsworth Boulevard in Lakewood for safekeeping. The people there think it’s a baby lizard, maybe a fence lizard native to the West but not normally found east of western Utah. How it got into the spigot at the Colorado Press Association remains a mystery.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
