Network Troubleshooting Tools

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.

The animal on the cover of Network Troubleshooting Tools is a basilisk, a lizard belonging to the iguana family. Its name comes from the mythological basilisk (also known as a cockatrice), a reptile with a deadly gaze and breath, said to have been hatched from a rooster’s egg by a serpent.

Though the two crests along their backs may make them look ferocious, basilisk lizards aren’t deadly to anyone but the bugs and occasional worms and small animals they eat. They grow to about two or two and a half feet long, with most of that length in their tail. The banded basilisk is brown with a yellow stripe along each side of its body, and other basilisk species are green or brown.

Unlike their mythological counterparts, real basilisks are hatched from basilisk eggs. The female basilisk digs a shallow hole in moist dirt, lays up to 18 eggs in the hole, and covers them with dirt. Then she goes back to her swinging single basilisk life, leaving the eggs and later the young lizards to fend for themselves. They do this quite well, taking up residence in trees and finding their own food soon after hatching.

The talent that basilisks are most known for is their ability to do something that looks remarkably like walking on water. In reality, their ...