LIZARDS

What a week it has been for reptiles - apart, that is, from the usual monitor lizards (goannas), skinks, geckoes, snake-lizards, etc.

The other night Hanneke went out to the rubbish bins behind the office, and there on the concrete was this beautiful beast.  At first glance we said Blue-tongue Lizard.  But it was too slender and graceful, and didn't have the stumpy fat legs of a Blue-tongue.  And besides, its tongue was pink, with blue along the middle, though it used it in a typical Blue-tongue fashion, darting it out frequently, with the tip turned up.

Nothing obviously matching it in our local guide (Wildlife of Greater Brisbane), and the same in Steve Wilson's excellent Field Guide to Reptiles of Queensland.  So we turned to the bible - Cogger's Reptiles and Amphibians of Australa.  There it was Pink-tongued Lizard Heimisphaeriodon gerrardii.  When we went back to the other guides it was there, but the photos weren't so diagnostic - and it seems that the genus has changed - it's now Cyclodomorphus garrardii - can't blame Cogger though, our copy of his book is the 1992 edition.

This morning Hanneke was walking up the track to the vege garden and saw a strange movement in the sandy soil beside the track. A bunch of heads poking out of the sand.

A nest of Bearded Dragon eggs was hatching.  This species (Pogona barbata) is common around here, and in fact we'd seen an abandoned attempt at nesting in the vege garden a couple of weeks earlier.   In 2008 we actually saw a female in the process of digging out the egg chamber, and she later backfilled the hole and packed the soil level with the surroundings.  These eggs were probably laid in October, though the incubation time is pretty variable, depending on weather conditions.  There are five Dragons in the photo above.

They seem to hang about with just their heads showing for a while, maybe watching for predators, maybe just resting after the effort of hatching and digging up to the surface, then make a break for cover.  They seem to be attracted to any higher part of the horizon - clumps of grass, piles of sand or rocks.

We are clearly starting to see a pattern here.  The nest we saw being laid on 7 November 2008 hatched on 1 February 2009.  And back in 2006 Liz found a young Bearded Dragon on 9 January (photos below).