By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Seniors were in for a treat this past Tuesday, June 27th, as Joy Marzolf presented her show, Leaping Lizards. Hosted by the Medfield Council on Aging, Marzolf brought six different lizards with her and talked about even more that are living in our world today.
In regards to this event, COA director, Sarah Hanifan, mentioned, “This is one of my favorite events by far. Joy puts on an amazing presentation for everyone.”
Joy started her presentation off by talking about the different kinds of anole lizards that we most commonly see. Many can confuse the anole with the gecko but Joy did an excellent job explaining the differences between them. Within her entire presentation, multiple lizard facts were shared that definitely went on to fascinate the audience.
One super interesting fact that Joy mentioned was that the use of venom by a Gila Monster can help cure those with diabetes. She specifically stated, “One of the components of their [Gila Monsters] venom has been actually used to make a drug to treat diabetes. Nature's pharmacy. This is one of the reasons why venomous animals, snakes, gila monsters, and other lizards/animals, are so important to study because they can be nature’s pharmacy. If we lose the animal, we could lose all of the compounds that could be the next cure for cancer or the next cure for another disease.”
As an added bonus to this presentation, Joy brought six different species of lizards that she has personally adopted. These lizard cuties included a rainforest gecko, leopard gecko, bearded dragon, chameleon, and more. When showing off her animals, Joy not only walked around to show people but also let them pet and hold certain lizards if they wanted to.
At the end of her presentation, Joy explained just how important lizards are to our everyday world. In terms of her presentation, Joy stated, “This gives you a really good idea that there are some pretty amazing lizards out there. But again, there are a lot of misunderstandings about some. Sometimes people may have had bad childhood experiences with one kind of animal or another. It is harder sometimes as we get older if we just have negative experiences with something that we don’t want to encounter. But these animals are really important predators out there in nature. They are one of the most important insect predators out in the wild. … I hope the next time you see a lizard, you know they aren’t going to hurt you, they don’t want anything to do with you.”
Those who attended Joy’s presentation left with an abundance of knowledge about lizards. One can only hope to see her return to the Medfield COA in the future!
