Shingleback Lizard (Tiliqua rugosa)

Today we visited a local community event called Grey Box Day, being a special day at Belair National Park to buy small trees for the garden. The Grey Box being one of the original native tree of this area, now almost entirely wiped out by agriculture and housing.

A local ranger had a small display of native wildlife including this wonderful Shingleback lizard which he held on his hand and forearm. You could touch the lizard and feel its hard shiny, scaly back. The scales felt like wooden shingles.

This is the bulkiest of the blue-tongues, the Shingleback Lizard, and they are common on the plains west of the Great Dividing Range where rainfall is low and throughout the semi-arid habitats of inland Australia as well as coastal parts of Western Australia and South Australia.

Alternative names for this lizard are Stumpy-tailed Lizard, Sleepy Lizard and Bobtail Lizard. Well worth a look in LARGE.

They are usually dark brown all over, with or without yellow spots. The belly of blue-tongues is usually pale with darker patches. The eye is small and reddish-brown to grey. The tongue is dark blue and the lining of the mouth is bright pink.

The Shingleback has a very large head, a very short blunt tail and large rough scales. Their size ranges up to 410mm in length with the head and body taking up 340mm.

They are monogamous, harmless to touch and generally speaking one does not touch them as they are left to go about their busines, eating weeds and leaf litter and generally staying out of sight.

Now to plant our box of 20 small trees that we purchased this year!