This isn't something I made, per se, but more something of a tip.

Take a look at this poor girl:

I believe she is a desert spiny lizard and she is a she because, at least from what I've read, the males have more colorful markings on their backs. I dunno. Regardless of what specific kind of lizard she/he/it is, I felt terrible when I found her pretty completely glued to the bug trap glue board.

I knew that if I tried to pull her off, it would end in disaster. First thing is that she'd probably go ape-shit and possibly bite me. I read they can nip if you try to mess with them. They're not poisonous, just mostly not sanitary. Pulling her off would probably tear off her scales on her belly, which likely means killing her. I thought about putting her out of her misery, since I figured she was going to die a slow death there.

I let her sit for a few days while I contemplated how to do it. In the meantime, she was clearly eating OK because she was building a collection of lizard poo behind her. She was right at the garage entrance where most of the crickets and other little critters slip in. This is also why we have a glue trap there: The bug guy wanted to see what sorts of things were finding their way into the garage.

I tried to give her water a couple of times, but I wasn't exactly sure if they drank water or got water from the things they eat. She wasn't amused by my water offerings.

On the way out the door for work the other morning, I decided to do a quick search on Google to see if anyone else had figured out how to do this without killing the critter. I finally found a YouTube video where people used salad oil or olive oil to free mice from these glue boards:

So, I ran into the kitchen, grabbed the olive oil dripper thing and poured some around the lizard. It took about one minute for me to run the olive oil back to the kitchen cabinet. When I got back, this is what was left:

She got free in no time and I was absolutely thrilled! She left a trail of olive oil lizard stamps across the garage floor on her way to wherever she was going:

Hopefully she wouldn't have too much trouble getting rid of all of that olive oil. Maybe she enjoyed a little with some bread. Who knows? The best thing is that she's free again to eat bugs in our yard and dig holes in the dirt.

Happy trails, little desert spiny lizard! Er... Happy olive oil trails!