Fire Dragon?

[Leo L.]

During my recent desert trip I had a really strange wildlife encounter.
It happened in a beautiful stretch of white sandy desert growing several single shrubs many meters apart, each hosting some critters, among which were several lizards (small light-brown ones).
We were taking a noon break in the shade of a bolder and were just boiling water on my simple Esbit stove for to have tea.
Suddenly a single lizard emerged from a shrub several meters off, run straight towards us, passed by me very close following a straight line ahead towards the stove setup and stopped right in front of it, staring into the bleaking flames.
Then the beast bite aggressively right into the flame for three or four times.
It stood still staring into the flames for some more seconds, then turned around and ran back the same way it came up.
All this happened at a speed that I had the camera ready only when the beast was gone for good, unfortunately.
My guess is, that the beast assumed a competitor and tried to fight it.
Or what would you say?

[mhamby]

I'd say it was a Jetboil fan....

[Leo L.]

As a native Middle East lizard, it sure had never heard of any stove system at all.

[garlic08]

How's this for a SWAG: The lizard could sense the water vapor from combustion?

[linus72]

that didn't happen to be peyote tea was it?

[mhamby]

LOL... where were you camping?

[Leo L.]

desert_break.jpg

This was the spot, see the Esbit setup to the far right.

[ScareBear]

Perhaps he thought it was a/the Burning Bush?

I'm curious as to what the shirt and pants are doing baking in the sun....

[rocketsocks]

Why does your hiking partner look so fuzzy

[Leo L.]

She had a heavy attack of migrain, what was basically the reason why we stayed on this nice shady spot for several hours (later to improve the shade by stretching the ground cloth tarp-style).
Shirt and pants of cotton, drying in the sun.

The Burning Bush idea has something in it!

[zelph]

The devil comes in many shapes and sizes :-)))

[Leo L.]

Wondering if the Fire Dragon would have fought (or even seen) the blueish flame of an alcohol stove? <G>

[zelph]

I imagined this little guy charging in at a fire....Winged Lizard:

winged lizard.JPG

[Leo L.]

No, it was a pretty common type, like this one:

[zelph]

Moths are know to be drawn to the flicker of fire and so now we know lizards are aggressively drawn to them. Thanks for sharing your experience. :-)

an after thought: the beast thought the orangish color of the esbit flame thought it was a fluttering moth/butterfly caught in a web.