Gary the Gecko in Phoenix

A good chunk of the evening in Phoenix went to finding Gary. He's a crested gecko, and crested geckos are arboreal — climbers and hiders — so when he goes missing the first place to check is the big houseplant, where he flattens himself along a stem and turns the same green-brown as everything around him. Even knowing he was in there, it took a while of parting leaves before anyone spotted the little fringe of spines along his back.

Once he was out he was calm about the whole thing, sitting on a paper towel and then getting passed from hand to hand. He has these huge coppery eyes with no eyelids. The species is from New Caledonia and was thought extinct until somebody found them again in 1994, which is a strange thing to know about an animal currently perched on someone's knuckles in Arizona.

He went back in the plant afterward and disappeared in about four seconds.