I saw a blue-bellied lizard the other day. I know the color of its belly because it was lying belly-up in the middle of the sunny road. Because it wasn’t moving, I approached it and took a picture. The blue color was so pretty. My intent, after the picture, was to poke it with a little stick so it would move out of the road; I had almost stepped on it, and it was positioned in such a way that either another runner or bicyclist was going to kill it unintentionally.
But then it looked like… it was dead? Because, I’ve never seen a lizard be so still. And on my runs, I see dead animals not infrequently–squirrels, raccoons, birds. But this might be the first dead lizard I’ve ever seen. I haven’t found out for sure, because I didn’t poke it. For some reason, I was more willing to poke it with a stick when it was alive than when I thought it was dead. I guess poking a peacefully suntanning lizard that is still alive is an act of saving a life; poking a dead lizard is, well, disturbing the dead.