A man had to undergo emergency surgery and had one of his fingers amputated after a lizard bit him while he was attempting to give it water. Jos Olimpio, a manual laborer, offered the reptile a drink from his bottle, but the lizard suddenly attacked and clamped its jaws on his fingers. His colleagues tried to pry the lizard off, and he was quickly taken to a local clinic. The lizard, identified as a black-and-white tegu (Salvator merianae), is known as the largest lizard species in Brazil.
These lizards, native to Central and South America, can grow up to two meters long but typically reach around 50cm in length. Tegus usually consume insects, birds, rodents, amphibians, other lizards, eggs, fruit, and leaves. They tend to only attack humans when they feel threatened. Jefferson Marcelo from the Federal University of Mato Grosso explained that the lizard acted out of a sense of being cornered and threatened when the man approached it.
Wildlife experts warn against touching wild lizards and advise against feeding them by hand. A biologist named Christian Raboch Lempek mentioned an incident where a wild tegu lizard aggressively lunged at a man offering it food, emphasizing the importance of not habituating these animals to human contact. In a separate incident in late 2023, a viral video showed a man in Jaraguá do Sul, Santa Catarina, attempting to feed a wild tegu lizard, resulting in a similar aggressive reaction.
