Greetings fellow Foxies,
 
Last June I discovered a long (30cm) reptile that I initially thought was a snake in leaf litter. It turned out to be Frasers Delma Delma fraseri.
Delmas are in the legless lizard family Pygopodiae, which are closely related to gekkos. Other names for them are flap-footed lizards or slithering gekkos. Like gekkos they have ears, can make noises, lay eggs, but they have no front legs and the rear legs are reduced to flaps. They have no eyelids and lick their eyes that are covered with a clear protective layer. This little critter hunts insects and grasshoppers.
The Australian Geographic to which we subscribe, has this great article

 
​Last week, while raking leaves I was excited to find another shorter ‘legless lizard’.
After taking many images, I noticed that it had dinky little legs that it used to push its body through the leaf litter.
Gadzooks! Hemiergis peronii. Peron's Earless Skink/ Lowlands Earless Skink/Four-Toed Earless Skink that is quite common in gardens. Mine was the three toed subspecies
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They have a movable clear lower eyelid and give birth to live young.
 
It is interesting how different families of lizards have evolved the same characters to become subsurface hunters.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
                                     I got a surprise yesterday when I lifted a sleeper in the bush and discovered a hibernating snake. It was only about 30cm long, as thick as a pencil, and very quiet.
My first impression was that it was a juvenile dugite or gwardar, but after extensive web searching am inclined to think that it is an adult Suta gouldii (Goulds black headed snake).
The difference is pretty important as this snake only grows to this length, is very retiring and only mildly venomous (i.e. no problem), whereas the adult others are highly venomous much larger and more assertive.
Apparently Goulds black headed snake differs from juveniles of the other in having a white line/area in front of its eyes but I find it difficult to tell.
Accurate differentiation can be achieved by examining the anal scales, but I lack skill and enthusiasm to check on a live snake.
I have seen quite few small snakes with black heads that were delivered to the office or under old pieces of corrugated iron in the bush, and feel a bit guilty about calling them all baby dugites.
Juvenile snake mortality is high. Some people have told me that they have seen a dugite in Foxes lair but in the 30 years I have only seen small ones and a magnificent Stimsons python.
Yet some people refuse to walk in Foxes Lair in summer due to perceived snake danger.
They are more likely to die from a car accident driving there, or blood clots from sitting in the house.