Tuesday, November 18, 2008

 

He's Actually Quite Friendly


This guy looks really fierce. He is hissing and showing that he is ready to bite. But it is all bluff. He is just trying to scare me away because he thinks that I want to hurt him. After a while he calmed down and wandered over to see what I was. He is a Shingleback Lizard. Shinglebacks are also called Sleepy or Pinecone Lizards because they are usually seen dozing in the sunlight and they look like three pinecones joined together. This is a local one. You can tell that because he is almost black, so that he can soak up every little bit of heat from the Sun. In hotter places shinglebacks are much paler coloured. On our South Australia trip we saw ones that were a pretty sandy-pink colour, because there they want to keep cool. These are harmless critters, unless you are a snail or a strawberry. They eat insects and flowers as well, particularly yellow ones, and they love orange marmalade. Don't be scared if one wanders into your back yard, just admire it and maybe put a bit of marmalade out for its lunch.

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