Eastern Water Dragon

Description:

30cm long lizard (maybe a bit more) with dark grey skin banded with narrow light coloured stripes. The rear feet have 1 extremely long toe - probably twice the length of its longest neighbouring toe. Skin appears loose, dull and wrinkly rather than smooth and shiny. The head has pronounced ridges above the eyes and a row of short spines along the neck.

Habitat:

This was one of a pair I found near a drainage culvert next to a railway line. The culvert was only recently exposed by railway workers clearing access to do signalling works, and was previously quite overgrown. You can see from the map that the culvert is near a substantial wooded area, which is only a few hundred metres from the coast.