Meet the Pygmy blue-tongue lizard
The pygmy blue-tongue is the smallest of the blue-tongue lizards, about 10 cm long, and despite its name it has a pink tongue. Each lizard claims an old wolf spider or trapdoor spider burrow in native grassland and spends nearly its whole life there, sitting at the entrance to bask and snap up passing insects.
Peters described the species in 1863, but as the grasslands around Adelaide were ploughed it disappeared from view. Not seen alive for over 30 years, it was presumed extinct.
In 1992 a herpetologist examining a dead brown snake near Burra found the remains of an adult male pygmy blue-tongue in its stomach. Searches soon turned up living populations, and surveys since have found the species at about 30 small grassland sites in the Mid North.
Researchers from Flinders University, Zoos SA and the state government now work with farmers to protect it. In 2016 Monarto Zoo bred 14 babies in captivity, a world first, and lizards have been moved to new sites with artificial burrows. In 2022, after floods at one site, scientists discovered the lizards can stay submerged in waterlogged burrows for more than half an hour.
Where it lives
Found only in South Australia's Mid North, roughly between Kapunda and Peterborough, plus the Upper Yorke Peninsula and northern Mount Lofty Ranges. It is known from only about 30 small patches of native grassland, nearly all on private farmland.