Pilbara Reptiles

Looks like the spring fauna survey work is starting to come in, with work in the Goldfields next week and a large fauna survey in the Kimberleys possibly next month. Most of our work over the past couple of years has been in the Pilbara region, so it will be nice to explore new areas and see some new animals hopefully.

Here are pictures of some of the reptiles we have caught on our recent Pilbara surveys.

A nice light-coloured Bearded Dragon (Pogona minor) found sunning himself on an old dead tree

A Western Hooded Scaly Foot (Pygopus nigriceps), a beautiful-looking harmless legless lizard. He is usually a nocturnal hunter of spiders.

A little story behind this rarely caught small snake (Vermicella snelli) often called a Bandy-Bandy. Brad, our herpatologist for this survey, who seems to have photos of just about every reptile in Western Australia, had never photographed this species. As luck would have it, his camera broke just before we caught this little snake. He was not happy!

A fine specimen of a Rosen's Snake (Suta fasciata), this snake isn't totally harmless, as a bite can cause severe swelling and pain.

This guy is totally harmless, a cute baby Centralian Blue-tongue (Tiliqua multifasciata). He seems to be sticking his tongue out to show us exactly what he thinks of being handled by humans.

A lovely adult Blue-tongue also sticking his tongue out. Often big skinks of the Tiliqua genus will open their mouth and stick out their coloured tongue as a defensive action, trying to scare off an attacker.