Oz fighting to save rare earless dragons
Sydney – Australia’s grassland earless dragon is no bigger than a pinkie when it emerges from its shell, but the little lizard faces an enormous challenge in the years ahead: avoiding extinction.
As recently as 2019, scientists in Canberra counted hundreds of grassland earless dragons in the wild. This year, they found 11. In other areas of the country, the lizard has not been seen for three decades.
The earless dragon, which is light brown and has long white stripes down its body, measures about 15cm when fully grown. It lacks an external ear opening and functional eardrum, hence the name.
Australia has four species of earless dragons. Three are critically endangered, the highest level of risk, while the fourth is endangered. The critically endangered dragons will likely be extinct in the next 20 years without conservation efforts.
“If we properly manage their conservation, we can bring them back,” said University of Canberra Professor Bernd Gruber, who is working on that.
Australia is home to thousands of unique animals, including 1 130 species of reptiles that are found nowhere else in the world.
Climate change, invasive plants and animals, and habitat destruction, such as the 2019 bushfires, which burned more than 19 million hectares, have pushed Australia’s native species to the brink. In the past 300 years, about 100 of Australia’s unique flora and fauna species have been wiped off the planet.
To save the earless dragons there are several breeding programmes under way across Australia, including a bio-secure facility in Canberra’s bushlands, which Gruber is overseeing.
On shelves are dozens of tanks that house the lizards – one to each container – with a burrow, grass and heat lamps to keep them warm. The biggest problem is matchmaking, with the territorial female lizards preferring to choose their mates.
This means that scientists must introduce different male lizards to the female until she approves. They must also use genetic analysis to determine which lizards are compatible.
At any one time, the breeding programmes around Australia can have up to 90 earless dragons, which will eventually be released back into the wild.
At the moment, Gruber is looking after more than 20 small lizards that have just hatched.
The lizards are contending with a shrinking habitat and a changing climate. Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Peta Bulling said the lizards only live in temperate grasslands, most of which have been destroyed by urban development.
Without the lizards, Australia’s alpine grasslands could look vastly different.
“They play an important role in managing invertebrate populations. They live in burrows in the soil, so they are probably aerating the soil, too,” she said. –