Xtolocaturday

I took a family vacation recently (as those who follow me on Twitter already know; see also here, and here). I haven’t talked about it at all, but we were visiting friends in Mexico. We took a day to visit the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza — the day after the Equinox, thankfully; it’s massively crowded there due to a light show on the Temple of Kukulkan, the great ziggurat there — and it was spectacular. I promise I will write about that at some point, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

But in the meantime, since it’s Caturday, and I’ve chosen to expand that to any animal, here is a little fella we saw while we were there:

[Click to iguananate.]

We actually saw dozens of iguanas, and my brother-in-law Chris took lots of excellent pictures of them (like this one, too).

We learned the Mayan word for iguana is xtoloc, pronounced SHTO-lok. This is my new favorite word in the whole world (ironically, taking the spot previously held by "Quetzlcoatl"). Whenever we see a lizard on TV, I turn ...

Full story at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/09/xtolocaturday/