Sal the Lizard and Ralph the Skunk aren’t the Toledo Zoo’s most iconic animals.
But they and a few other lesser-known critters got — bad pun intended here — the lion’s share of attention from area Boy Scouts on Friday during an expanded version of an event known as Merit Badge Day at the Toledo Zoo .
Sal in particular was kind of a show-stopper, ambling around on the carpet of the Nature’s Neighborhood building secured in a harness and being walked with a leash, almost like a small dog.
A couple of zoo employees familiar with Sal, though, said his demeanor often reminds them more of a house cat, by the way he moves and carries himself. That is, of course, far unlike he’d act if he was in the wild, they said.
Sal’s a type of lizard known as an Argentine black and white tegu, which Wikipedia states is also known as the Argentine giant tegu, the black and white tegu, or the huge tegu — the largest species of the “tegu lizards.”
Fun fact: His chubby cheeks, or jowls, are what distinguish him as a male and “make him attractive to the ladies,” his handler, Max Venia, said.