by Nancy Whelan

Teressa Kileen, the “Lizard Lady,” with granddaughter Angel and Scooter, the prehensile-tailed skink. Photo courtesy of Patrick Kileen.

Sept. 1, 2010 —  Indigo likes to shock others with her bright blue tongue. Bob is the only 65-year-old in town with red scales. Together, they’re the life of the party at Bay Area preschools, day camps and classrooms — that is, when Scooter the skink isn’t stealing the show. What they share in common, apart from their fellow membership in phylum Chordata and class Reptilia, is their devoted owner: Pacifica’s “Lizard Lady,” Teressa Kileen. She makes it her business to educate children about rainforest conservation and how animals work together in the wild, using live interactive demonstrations. I caught her en route to two San Jose preschools on Aug. 2, with a carload of reptiles and five minutes to kill before showtime.

“With the preschoolers, I keep it simple,” she says. “We hold the animals and talk about the importance of saving trees and not wasting paper towels, for example. By the time I leave, the 4-year olds are teaching fellow classmates or nagging their mothers about using ‘just one paper towel.’ It’s adorable.”

Curious about the carload of reptiles, I ask Kileen about her passengers. “I’ve got Bob here with me today. He’s a cool guy. He’s done every show with me for the past 20 years. He knows he’s going to get an orange if he comes along, so he’s excited,” she says.

What Bob, the Brazilian jungle red-footed tortoise, doesn’t know is that his fellow passenger Scooter, a prehensile-tailed skink from the Solomon Islands, is integral to his “orange-getting.” Or does he know? During the presentation, Scooter perches on Kileen’s arm as he eats an orange in front of the class, and he always lets part of it drop to the ground, much the way parrots and monkeys do in the rainforest. Bob, being a tortoise, stays on the ground and is all too happy to clean up the mess. Like his rainforest brethren, Bob adores fruit but must wait for it to fall from the trees when it’s very ripe, or for other animals to drop it from the branches above. Kileen helps kids understand the working relationship between rainforest species by using analogies like “garbage men” and “messy eaters” to describe the food cleanup process that takes place in the wild.

“With the older kids, we go deeper into the discussion of the rainforest and talk about topics such as how trees create oxygen for the planet. Then I might talk about cattle ranching and the meat industry as one of the leading causes of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, for example. Teenagers eat a lot of hamburgers. This is a great time to make them aware of what’s going on in the world and the choices they have.”

Kileen lives with and cares for approximately 30 reptiles, including Indigo, a blue-tongued skink from the Australian outback and Scooter’s family of five prehensile-tailed skinks. Scooter is the proud father of three babies that were born recently under Kileen’s watchful care. She adopts only rescued animals and as a long-time member of the Rainforest Action Network, donates a portion of her annual proceeds to RAN. While her reptile family includes species from all over the world, her teachings focus on the problems faced by vanishing species of rainforest reptiles.

As the fragile connection between the environment, wildlife and humans continues to make national headlines following the BP oil spill, Kileen hopes to expand public focus to include the fragile ecosystem of the rainforest. To that end, she is offering Bay Area schools special pricing through the end of 2010. To book Kileen’s interactive wildlife experience, contact the Lizard Lady directly at 650-355-4105 or via e-mail at lizardladyrept@hotmail.com.