Australian Reptiles

Reptiles are vertebrates that have scales, cannot regulate their body temperature the way birds and mammals can, and breathe through lungs from birth (or hatching)

Australia has over 1000 species of reptiles and amphibians, including lizards (five families), snakes (four terrestrial families plus seas-snakes), turtles (freshwater and marine) and crocodiles.

Australian lizards

There are 5 families of lizards, the largest family being the skinks, and Australia has the world’s highest diversity of skinks. The other families are the dragons (the family is named after a gliding lizard in southeast Asia), the geckos, the monitors (usually called ‘goannas’ in Australia) and the flap-footed lizards (a primarily Australian family, also called ‘legless lizards’ or ’snake-lizrds’). We do NOT have iguanas, although some of our dragons look a bit like them.

Goannas (pictured above) can often be seen in the warm months lumbering around picnic and cam,ping areas, hoping to find a free feed from scraps left by people: please don’t deliberately feed these animals, as an increased population of one species can have negative impacts on others, and we don’t want goannas and other wildlife becoming dependent on handouts. Small skinks often dash from walking tracks in most habitat types to scurry under leaf litter, logs or other shelter. Skinks, dragons and goannas are all common in both coastal and outback habitats, but dragons are especially diverse in the outback.

Australian snakes

The common snakes of most countries are in the colubrid family (rear-fanged snakes), but most of Australia’s are in the elapid family (front-fanged snakes) and this contains all our dangerous, highly venomous species as well as some harmless ones and some which could cause pain and nausea without being life-threatening.

With a bit of care you can easily spend a lifetime amongst snake habitat without being bitten, as snakes do not see us as prey in the same way that saltwater crocdiles and sharks do, so as long as they are given the chance they are more conserned with getting away from us than with attacking. Avoid walking through long grass, esepcially in warm months, but if you do have to do so, tap the grass and ground ahead of you with a long stick as you walk, or if you can;t find such a stick stamp your feet, as snakes are very sesnitive to vibrations in the ground. Don’t reach into dark supboards or bags in sheds without looking first, and flash your torch (flahslight to Americans) on the groud ahead of you as you walk at night (some snakes are nocturnal). If a snake suddenly appears next to you, it is best to stand still and let it glide by – a sudden movement by you could be mistaken by the snake as a threat.

Other terrestrial families are pythons (Australia has more species than any other country – they are never venomous, but of course can still bite, as can most animals) and blind snakes. The carpet python (pictured above) is one of our most commonly-seen snakes, often sunning themselves on tracks or tree branches during the warmer months, and are often also active at night, in both rainforests and open forests. Blind snakes are small, harmless, burrowing creatures, and seldom seen.

Some snake families we don’t have: We do NOT have cobras, we do NOT have adders and vipers (although one dangerous elapids looks and behaves a bit like an adder and so is called a death adder). We do NOT have boas (but our pythons behave in a similar way).

Australian turtles

Our freshwater turtles are related to those of South America, and we share marine turtles with the warm waters throughout the world. We have NO land tortoises, but some of the older books refer to our freshwater turtles as torroises.

Our freshwater turtles pull their heads into their shells by bending their necks sideways, similar to freshwter turtles in South America, to which they are related due to a shared Gondwanan history.

freshwater turtle

Australian crocdiles

There are two species of crocodile – one (Johnstone’s crocodile, also known as the freshwater crocodile) found only in Australia, the other (the saltwater crocodile, pictured below) found from Australia to India.

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