Meet Igor. He’s a lizard. He’s been loose in McHenry for 3 weeks

It’s been almost three weeks since Igor the Iguana vanished from his McHenry backyard.

Igor’s owners had almost given up hope for reuniting with the 5-year-old lizard. Then, as temperatures began skyrocketing Wednesday, Igor reappeared, sunning himself on a neighbor’s driveway

”I thought I was in Florida,” said neighbor Tyler Roman, who spotted Igor on his driveway as he got ready to leave for work.

Despite attempts by neighbors and friends to a wrangle the iguana from a McHenry backyard, the lizard remained on the lam Wednesday afternoon.

Owner Carol Chrisman was just happy and surprised to hear Igor still was alive.

Roman said he tried to capture the iguana as it sunned itself on the driveway. But once Roman approached, Igor took off.

“He got up on his hind legs and ran,” Roman said. “I couldn’t believe it went that fast.”

Igor then perched on a fence. Leery of his claws, Roman didn’t want to try to grab him.

“I have never kept reptiles as pets,” he said. “They have claws like velociraptors.”

So, Roman posted photos on a McHenry Facebook page asking if anyone had lost a pet, and people began tagging Chrisman. Unbeknownst to him, their houses back up to each other with a fence in between.

“He is in seventh heaven right now.”

—  Igor the Iguana's owner Carol Chrisman

Roman also had not seen Chrisman’s Aug. 4 Facebook posts, when Igor first made a run for it.

That day Chrisman’s adult son, Billy, had set Igor the Iguana in his “catio,” an indoor enclosure next to the screened window, to enjoy the view and fresh air while he jumped in the shower, she said.

Igor, a male red-and-orange iguana, tore a hole in the window screen and escaped. Sure that Igor had succumbed to the elements after so long on his own, Carol Chrisman took down and burned the catio enclosure just last week.

Now, she hopes a bowl of water and some of his favorite foods underneath the tree Igor has retreated into will tempt him to come down.

“He is the most spoiled thing in the world,” Carol Chrisman said. She wasn’t participating in the recapturing efforts Wednesday afternoon due to work commitments, but said others were still on the scene.

Roman left for work a little late as he helped with the rescue.

At one point, a neighbor crawled on top of a shed to try to grab Igor, Roman said. The iguana crawled higher into a tree.

Chrisman thinks Igor wants to come home, but all the activity is scaring him.

Igor appears healthy, she said.

“He looks pretty good, maybe a little skinny for me,” Chrisman said. She’s also worried he may be dehydrated.

Neither she nor Roman know where Igor has been hiding for the past three weeks, but Chrisman wonders if maybe he was living in neighborhood culverts.

It isn’t the first time Igor has escaped. In the past, he’d gone out their doggy door before her dogs corralled him back inside, Chrisman said.

She does think Igor is thrilled with the high temperatures expected Wednesday and Thursday.

“He is in seventh heaven right now,” she said.