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 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
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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
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.
 | Compare them with this 30cm juvenile dugite I found hibernating in Foxes Lair one winter. Snakes are deaf (no ear holes) and lack eyelids. Unlike lizards they do not lose their tail when they try to escape, but I don’t recommend testing it if you are unsure |
