Lizards - Part 1

I don't like lizards, so when I saw a big one hop off of a rock into the swimming pool and scamper across the water, it freaked me out.  I had been landscaping in the back garden and didn't see the prehistoric creature resting on the rock.  I just heard a loud splash and then saw creepy webbed feet and a long wide tail fanning through the water. 

It stopped on the pool's edge and hung on, panting like a dog.  I thought it was going to drown so I ran to get my son-in-law to fish it out.  He laughed and said, "No worries, it's probably just a water dragon, they're great swimmers." Because they're so quick, I have yet to catch a photo of these skittish creatures, like the Internet picture below.

Internet Wikimedia Picture

The Eastern Water Dragon is the largest of the dragon lizards. They're found near bodies of water in southern New Guinea and eastern Australia, otherwise, Sydney. These are big reptiles. They grow to be 1 meter or 3 feet in length.  

Lizards don't produce their own body heat, so to raise their body temperatures and energize, they rely on either basking in the sun or sitting on warm objects, like rocks or logs.  

Diving into a body of water when disturbed is their typical behavior. They're excellent swimmers and have flat muscular tails designed to help them paddle. Two-thirds of their length is tail.  If threatened they will whip at you with their long tail, which is more painful than their bite.

Only a day or so later, my son-in-law & daughter called me down to the pool to look at another freaky reptile, the Australia Eastern Blue Tongue Lizard. They saw it crawling under the fence near the same rock the water dragon had sat upon.

Blue Tongue Lizard under our pool fence

The blue-tongue  is the largest member of the lizard family with a body length between 250 - 600 mm in length or 9 - 23 inches. Its head is big, body long and legs short and close to the ground, so it moves very slowly.

My daughter smiled and said pleasingly, "Looks like you've got yourself a skink!"

I thought to myself - Okay, so why is my skink called a blue-tongue.

The Internet picture below shows the lizard sticking out its tongue.  It is winter here now and my goal is to capture my own picture of its blue tongue in the summer.

Internet Picture of a Blue Tongue Lizard

The lizard uses its blue tongue as its main defense. Predators are afraid when they see it coming out of its pink mouth.  No teasing, they will bite hard but they do not have venom.

A few weeks later, I was flabbergasted when I opened my trifold glass patio doors to air out my flat (apartment) and found a baby blue-tongue on my deck -  close enough to get inside.   I'm sure the small ones bite just as hard as the big ones.

Baby Blue Tongue on my deck

The birthing season for blue-tongues is from March to May, which is autumn in Sydney.  This was March and they were running rampant.  

Silver blue-tongue - back garden

In my garden I've seen both the silver grey blue-tongue with black bands across his back and the dark chocolate blue-tongue with brown to black bands.  Both have smooth overlapping scales.

Brown blue-tongue - back garden

It's against the law to harm these lizards as they are a protected species by the National Parks and Wildlife Act, however, they do occasionally get run over by lawnmowers.  Yipes!

I realized we were in full lizard season when I saw something that looked like a leaf but turned out to be a Gecko.

Broad Tail Gecko with it's little foot under my door

The Broad Tail Gecko, aka, Southern Leaf Tailed-Gecko is small, only about 15 cm long or 5 inches. It's flat and mostly found on sandstone outcrops where they are camouflaged.  

To me, this lizard was worse than the others. Creepier.  It had spiny and granular skin that looked like pointed scales and a tail more frightening than its head.  

Broad Tail Lizard - The tail appears to be larger than the head

We tried to lure it off the porch by stomping around it but it never stirred.  So we gently nudge it off of the porch with the broom not knowing it s easily stressed. 

It got fighting mad!  

Waved its tail, opened its mouth and hissed, continuously.

In the video below, you have to actively listen to hear it.

Eventually, we got it to leave the porch but not before it dropped its tail.

Caudal Autotomy is the term for this self-amputation, which is a defensive behavior. Once the tail drops it continues to wiggle, distracting the predator while the lizard gets away. A new one will grow back but will look different. This is sad because other than as a defense, their tails are used to store fat.

Broad Tail lizards are nocturnal and extremely rare to see one on a sunny afternoon. Not sure why this little fellow found its way onto my deck, but in the future, I will let it be.

There are hundreds of small to medium sized lizards running through the gardens and on porches but because I've lived among similar ones in Virginia Beach I've never felt threatened.

Lizard on an outside wall

Lizard on the deck

My grandson brought a dump truck with a little lizard hiding inside into his bedroom. It took us a while to get it out of the house but we were able to remove it unharmed.

Lizard in Jethro's Bedroom

I've become more protective of these exotic and special lizards that are native to my Sydney.  I still don't like them but have learned to live and let live.  

After all, they are mostly harmless . . . mostly.

Lizards that look like dragons . . . 

Lizards with blue tongues . . . 

Lizards with tails that look like heads and autotomize . . . 

Lizards crawling over your bed . . . 

. . . I am not in Kansas!