Eastern Water Dragon
Intellagama lesueurii lesueurii (formerly Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii)
-27.4755, 152.978
Field Notes
Description:
A water dragon doing what water dragon's are meant to do, and that is 'swim'. It is, however, the first time I've ever seen one do this, and I was only alerted to its presence when I heard a loud splash. These reptiles are good swimmers, but strangely enough they don't have webbing on their feet, relying instead on their laterally-compressed tail. They can actually stay submerged for up to 90 minutes, so they're really well adapted to water environments. They're also very proficient climbers. Detailed information on this species can be found at one of my previous spottings, also in Brisbane - http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/22204079 An interesting fact: Fossil and biochemical records of Intellagama in Australia show that they have existed here for the past 20 million years and are quite an ancient lineage of reptile. In the modern era, the Eastern Water Dragon is one of two sub-species of I. lesueurii, the other being the Gippsland Water Dragon - I. l. howittii.
Habitat:
This fellow was spotted in the pond at the Mt. Coot-tha Botanical Gardens in Brisbane QLD.
Notes:
I've chosen the first photo in this series as the lead photo simply because it shows the animal actually swimming. It was a blurred photo, poorly lit, and lacked clarity, so I tarted it up with some creative editing to make it more presentable, something I usually try to avoid doing for my Noah spottings. One of the rangers said to me once "Recording the spotting is far more important than great photography", and that's something I always bear in mind. I wanted to salvage this photo though because I thought it was worth sharing.
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