(Mainichi)

       OKAYAMA -- Two lizards fled an apartment in this west Japan city, and while the smaller of the pair was captured on Oct. 24, its 1-meter-long companion is still on the loose.

       Okayama Prefectural Police's Okayama Chuo Police Station received a report just after 5 p.m. on Oct. 23 from a man saying that an acquaintance's two pet lizards were missing. The two reptiles -- a gray central bearded dragon measuring some 15 centimeters long, and the much larger black and white Argentine tegu -- kept by a woman in her 20s apparently escaped from her apartment in the city's Naka Ward. Though they are not poisonous, they reportedly may bite.

       About 20 officers searched for the animals, and found the central bearded dragon in a vacant lot near the women's apartment on the afternoon of Oct. 24. But the Argentine tegu is still missing.

       According to the police station, the woman noticed that her Argentine tegu had disappeared on the morning of Oct. 23. The room's veranda door was reportedly open about 10 centimeters.

       (Japanese original by Sayuri Toda, Okayama Bureau)

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