Mexican Beaded Lizard
(Heloderma horridum).
Image by fivespots.
T
he Gila Monster (Heloderma suspectum) has a
colourful history interwoven with the
colonisation of the American West. Feared and
reviled, the lizard was reputed to have toxic breath, and
an invariably lethal bite. Accounts of terrible suffering
and death abound in the period from the 1880s to the
1930s, however, the stories are conflicting and some
appear to have been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, some
of the ‘victims’ were not exactly in prime condition, and
the treatment administered for the bites may have
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