IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17027, 28 April 1923, Page 4

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

A LIZARD FANCIER\S EXPERIENCES. Bt J. Dhumuond, F.L.S., F.Z:S. Lizard-fanciers will be interested in a letter from Mrs G. Ovens. Matakohe, a township on the inner arm of Kaipara Harbour. This year, two lizards presented twins to her zoo. In each case one of the baby lizards was a male and one a female. When Mrs Ovens wrote on March 31. all the youngsters were bright and active. In less than four hours after their birth they stalked insects and other food. Mrs Ovens writes :—“ The mothers—beautiful big. brown, velvety lizards—are inhabitants of heavy native bushland, living mainly under decayed kauri and totara logs and limbs. Thev may lie caught easily, and thev actapt themselves readily to conditions in captivity. They are naturally docile, allowing themselves to be handled and petted without any apparent distaste, even when first caught. Yellow and green lizards are more troublesome to tame. They sulk at first, and, for three weeks or longer, they refuse to eat or drink. Hunger, T suppose, eventually drives them from cover. If food is handy and they can satisfy their craving then, their capitulation is complete. My experience proves that a lizard knows at once whether a person by whom it is handled is afraid of it, or dislikes it We have only to open a, door and nut in a hand to have our lizards climb on us and tun over us, passing from one to another if we stand fairly close. **

Some of Mrs Ovens’s lizards are viviparous, and some are oviparous. A few of them have tiavelled hundreds of miles. Amongst these is an Australian gecko, which is unlike any native lizard of New Zealand. “ Its strangest feature,” Mrs Ovens writes, “is its tail. This is large, flat, and very narrow where it is attached to the body, it broadens out to the extent of more than an inch in the middle, and then tapers to a long thin point, being diamond-shaped. W hen the gecko is alarmed or when IF walk', it usually parries its tail in the air, almost at right angles to its body. It has a. rough horny skin, greyish. On being touched or alarmed, it utters a compound note, which sounds like ‘ geck-o.’ She hap rot laid more than two eggs in eight years. We have not had her for eight rears, but we know because her historv came with her. Our other Jjnards began with us eight years ago. Our interest in them has not waned in the slightest. Ten people out of every twelve who see our lizards take a deep interest in them. Of those afraid to handle them, the majority aro men ; children seldom aro afraid. If you ever hoar of anybody who wishes to part with a rare lizard, will you kindly let them know that it will have a good home

It is imposable to identify Mrs Ovens’* lizards from the descriptions. Her gecko certainly teems to belong to one of some forty species of geckoes possessed by the Commonwealth, compared to only seven species possessed by this Dominion. The native green lizard and the tree lizard, both fairly common, are geckoes. The common New Zealand lizard, the Maoris’ inakomako, brown or olive, often found under stones and logs in the bush and the open country, the rock lizard, black, spotted with olive, and the copper lizard are members of another family. the skinks. Skinks have welldeveloped eyelids, but the valvular lids of geckoes’ eyes usually are rudimentary, although they have transparent lids', like those of s»nakes._ under which the eyes move freely. New Zealand s fourteen species of lizards are very poor representatives of their order, compared with almost 400 species possessed by Australia. This does nut include some 50 species of Australian snakes. New Zealand's singularity as a country without snakes is set-off by her exclusive possession of the most interesting reptile now living, the tuatara. a lizardlike creature, which is neither lizard, snake, nor turtle, but is related to them all, and which has os its closest allv a reptile named Homceosaimis that lived in Europe in the Jurassic Period. \

All New Zealand’s lizards arc devoid of ornaments. Their beauty ia in the colours of their skins. New Zealand has none of the Australian dragons. These are lizards that often hove ornamental appendages, such as crests, throat-pouches, braids, and frills, in some species worn by the males only, in other species worn by both sexes. The dragons of the Middle Ages died with tho passing of chivalry. The only dragons of these prosaic times are riv-ing'-lizards. Draco, found in the East ; Indies, but Australia’s dragon-lizards. | more than any other lizards, recall !1 > shape, if not in size, the conventional i dragon* whom it was the business of I heroes of romance to destroy. Amongst Australia’s dragon- lizards are tii’ bloodsucker, the swelled-head dragon. the military dragon. with a red coat, faced with white black a*’d yellow, the ornate dragon, the paint’l dragon, the bearded dragon, with a beard of long xpines. and the homed dragon, which, in zoological literature i„ named, aptly. Moloch horridus. The horrible Moloch, probably, is the ugliest lizard in the world. Its appearance is repulsive, and its aspect forcibly brings Ic mind fabled monsters. It is about eight- inches long. Its body is covered with plates, furnished with spines. There is a large horn over each ey-o. and another hoiu behind, and there are smaller horns behind the nostrils, in front of the ears.. iind on the back of the head. There is a row of seven large spines ou the neck, followed by u knapsack excredence, and a pair of large spines that point outwards and backwards. Rows of prickles run down the baciv. The general colour is yellowish, with large chestnut symmetrical markings. Although the spines will draw blood if handled incautiously, Molocli, in spite of its appearance, is harmless. Like Mrs Ovens’s Australian gecko, it is an interesting pet. It feeds largely on small ants. Specimen* kept in Western AustiraSuT'tvei'e turned loose on a roadside or on a garden path when many black ants were present.. The Molochs soon settled down to feeding in a row, each taking an amazing number oh insects. Experimental counting showed that rio fewer than from 1000 to 1500 ants were taken in one meal. Each ant was picked uj. separately like a flasli by the protrusion of a slender adhesive tongue.

The female Moloch lays abo it six white eggs at a time. Thev are more than half an inen long, large compared to her size, and they are covered with a tough, leathery membrane. Moloch seems to he restricted to West, South, ajftfl Central Australia. It does not like cold, and ii hibernates in holes or burrows. It is related closely to the frilled dragon of Western Australia. North-west Australia. and Queensland. With a slender body, a long tail, and a wide frill, and with a habit of running erect on its two hind legs, with head erect and frill extended, this is Australia’s most original lizard. It sometimes is nearly turns at bay, extends its frill to the

the most destructive lizard on the other side. It feeds voraciously on any creature, dead or alive, that comes its way. It is a practised robber, climbing, running, crawling, and swimming with skill, and it is a menace to poultry-yards. * ft bites severely with its sharp teeth, and cannot be handle ! with impunity. A biuy cuttlefish, whose spiral, chambered shells, almost always empty, are washed up on the shores of New Zealand in countless thousands, at last has come under the observation of a scientist. Only one specimen of the creature itself nas been recorded from New Zealand, and only a few specimens were recorded anywhere else until Dr J. Schmidt, of Copenhagen, collected some during a recent scientific expedition to tho Atlantic Ocean. This i cuttlefish, Spirula.. still ranks amongst | the greatest zoological rarities. The i shell measures about an inch at its ; widest part. # Us owner and occupier J lias a body shaped like a cylinder. The shell is carried at the end of the body, and has a tendency to lift the | posterior part in the water. When i the creature is dead, or when it is j alive, but is not inclined to active l movement, it rises to the surface and j remains suspended there head down- : wards, with the lighter posterior partI uppermost. If moved from that posij tion, it will swing back immediately, | like a tumbling figure. • When alive, it sometimes simulates | death. ft often makes swift, direct j movements, dashing off suddenly in any direction, always downwards or from j side to side, and sometimes coming to 1 j a standstill in mid-water. Left to itself, it will remain suspended for lion *s i at the surface or lower down in the water, always in a vertical position. When violently disturbed, it occasionally discharges a small cloud of greyish ink. At the en.i of its body there is a small bead-like organ used as a lamp, which emits a pale yellowishgreen light, apparently directed upwards. Unlike the light of many creatures of the sea which flares up and fades away. Spirilla’s little lamp burns continuously, sometimes for hours together. Mr R. W. Hawkinson, Wales Street, Bishopscourt, Dunedin, states that he i©members having dug up truffles on iiis father’s station, Lynwood, near Lake Te Anna, more than forty years ago. He does r»ot know the species to which they belonged, but. he states that they were used for food and were wholesome. “We found them in dry soil under a row of tail bluegums,” he writes: 1 I have not heard of their having been found anywhere else in New Zealand."