There’s a House in Inglewood with a Calgary Zoo Dinosaur in Its Front Yard

The story of Inglewood’s friendly neighborhood fiberglass lizard, which has been attracting people to his owner’s home for years.

If you’re not careful walking around in Inglewood, you could find yourself face-to-face with a giant, lizard-like creature known as a Dimetrodon. If you do, don’t worry says his owner Mitch La Certe, he’s friendly.

So just how did the Paleozoic-era creature, lovingly named Ed, end up on La Certe’s front lawn? “I used to work at the zoo, and about seven years ago we were starting demolition on the new subway tunnel where the new entrance is for the zoo. All the dinosaurs that were in the tunnel had to come out,” says La Certe. Since many of the creatures that once inhabited the tunnel were destined to languish at the back of a shop, La Certe said he just had to save them from a life of obscurity.

“I wanted to bring the woolly mammoth home,” says La Certe. “But the boss here [his partner Theresa Lougheed] said no way. ”

As far as he knows, that mammoth was cut into chunks and is now stored away in some Okotoks facility.

Not that La Certe needs anything else to draw people’s eye. He says Ed has always drawn a crowd. “I love the reaction, that’s why I brought it home,” says La Certe. “I’ve had carloads of tourists come to the end of the cul-de-sac, get out of the car with their cameras, take a bunch of pictures, and get in the car and drive away. That’s great. That’s why he’s here.”

Ed isn’t the only transplant from the zoo. There’s also a pair of parrots rescued from a different exhibit, one of which is currently filling a hole in La Certe’s fence to keep his dog from getting out. “I’m not a complete hoarder,” says La Certe. “But when it comes to interesting things like that, I just don’t have the gumption to throw it out or destroy it.”