Blue tongued lizard

Big Bob Sheds

| paulamyes

Big Bob is the resident Yoorn or Bobtailed Lizard. He lives under the house and can occasionally be seen exploring the garden. Normally he is a very feisty lizard with a lot of attitude, but on Monday we found him in the shade house looking very sorry for himself. At first we thought he’d gone down with Bobtailed flu, but on closer inspection he was shedding his skin. We often find the old skins in the garden but I’ve never seen this happen. So we thought we’d just leave him be and get on with it. On Tuesday he’d moved out onto the grass and we were worried about him as we often get kestrels, goshawks or sparrow hawks use our TV aerial as an observation post and they’d have no qualms about making a meal of him. He started wriggling and writhing in the grass in an attempt to get his old skin off. By lunch time apart from a few scraps between his toes he’d got the job done.  By Wednesday he was back to scaring our Bull Terrier, Frida, and walking round the garden like he owns it. Another couple of weeks and he’ll be tucking himself up for the winter.

 

Big Bob our resident Bobtailed Lizard found in the shadehouse looking very sorry for himself.

 

He’d started to shed his skin and was looking very tatty.

 

Not dead, wriggling in the wet grass trying to remove the old skin.

 

As the sun warmed everything up he was content to lie like this for about half an hour.

 

Right side up again.

 

Still looking a bit manky.

 

After another hour mission accomplished – looking all new and neat again.

 

Big Bob looking a lot happier post shed.

Little Bob Does Brunch

| paulamyes
Little Bob does brunch on our back patio. Panasonic Lumix G85 with LEICA DG 100-400/F4.0-6.3 lens. Exposure: 1/500 sec, f6.3 at ISO 320 with -1 stop exposure compensation.

 

We have at present three bob tailed lizards (Tiliqua rugosa) living in the back garden. There’s Big Bob – he’s big male who must be very old judging from the size of him. He’s been here the longest and when he got sick with bobtail lizard flu one winter a couple of years ago we had him inside the house to help him get over it and then tucked him up under a pile of leaves for the remainder of the winter.  Just a couple of weeks ago I heard this thrashing about under the sofa on our back patio and when I went and looked it was Big Bob mating with a smaller sleeker female who I called Mrs Bob (hey I can’t be stunningly original all the time!). They are unlike other lizards monogamous and give birth to live young so we’re looking forward to the new arrivals. Little Bob made an appearance on the patio this morning, he’s significantly smaller than the other two so I guess he’s not very old. They are omnivores and very partial to fruit – strawberries being a favourite – so I sliced up a cherry tomato and he/she scoffed the lot very quickly. As they also eat snails and insects I’m hoping that having three of them will mean that they keep the garden pests down. There’s also a bit of an old wives tale that says if you have one in your garden it’ll keep snakes away. I dunno if it’s actually true or not, but having three has got to be good.