Woman Alarmed by Mysterious Pastry Lizard

This is a test.

There are two images accompanying this article. One is a photograph of an iguana, a kind of lizard. The other is not. Can you tell the difference?

If so, your powers of observation are keener than some. Specifically, better than a woman in Poland who called the authorities when she saw an unusual object in a lilac tree outside her home.

The object had been there for a few days, and the longer she looked at it, the more she became convinced it might be an iguana.

Why someone would sound the alarm when they spied a lizard in a tree is another question entirely, although they are considered invasive species in some locales. Not sure about Krakow.

Anyway, when wildlife officers arrived, ready to do battle with this mystery animal clinging to the limbs of the woman’s tree, they found something they concluded definitely was not a lizard.

It was a croissant.

Now, here at Tropic Press we do not hold people up to ridicule. Unless it’s funny. But, really, do you see any similarity? One is a bakery product. The other a reptile.

In all fairness, both are edible. Some people call iguanas the “chicken of the trees.” Sources tell me that iguanas taste remarkably like poultry, then again chicken itself is almost flavorless, which is why everything tastes like chicken.

But, we cannot imagine it tasting anything like a croissant or a Danish, or a donut, or other breakfast treat. After all, it’s scaly, not crusty. But who knows? Maybe roll that critter in dough and deep fry it? Let us know if you give it a try.

But, for sure, they don’t look anything alike. Can  we all agree on that?

The Krakow Animal Welfare Society reported that officers were able to capture the tree-borne creature “bread-handed.” They speculate that someone threw the croissant out a window in a half-baked effort to feed the birds. And they assured the woman she did the right thing by calling.

We can only imagine the phone conversation if this had happened in the States, say here in Florida where I live:

911 Operator: 911. What’s the emergency?

Concerned Citizen: I’m looking out my window and I think I see a lizard.

911 Operator: I’d be surprised if you didn’t. What’s the issue?

Concerned Citizen: Well, it’s been there for three days.

911 Operator: Probably dead. Let us know if it really tastes like chicken.

STRANGER THAN FICTION: You shouldn’t feed bread—or croissants—to birds, according to the never-wrong internet. Bread has low nutritional value and moldy bread can kill our avian friends.