This is our resident lizard. We call him Ralf and hand feeds on occasions, if it suits him.
Suns himself every morning on the rock wall bordering the front lawn.
He steals the odd chook egg and make the small birds agitated (for good reason) and the little he takes we can afford. He doesn’t seem at all interested in the bee hive. Has swaggered past it but doesn’t, even flick a tongue at the hive. Does an excellent job of keeping away snakes and just a part of the ecology.
He is one of three lizard types we have. The Bobtail which isn’t seen much since the arrival of the Skinks about 5 years ago. These Skinks grow to about 400 mm long (1 1/2 feet) and are very aggressive and rapidly reproduce so they are discouraged.
Our neighbors here in California had a 3 foot skink run into their house and hide under the sofa for 2 hours… Eventually they got an animal control person to capture it - amazing beasts (the skinks, not animal control!).
Ralf’s skin is about 3mm thick and tougher than cow leather. If he gets stung for being naughty that will be his come uppance but up untill now he doesn’t bother the bees and the bees don’t bother him.
Here is one of our Bearded Dragons, we have around 5 of these hanging around our garden and bee hive. I haven’t seen them actually eat any bees but I am sure they have had some in the past.
Water Dragons love to eat bees, I have three who visit everyday and despite my efforts to keep them away from the bees, they always manage to find a new way to get to them.
I do have a gekko (the non native variety) that seems to live between the corflute and the mesh in the SBB. I don’t think he eats the bees. I like to think it acts as a bouncer and keeps the SHB away.
Yes that’s the one. Commonly known around here and Western Australia as the Racehorse goanna.
The skin to touch is dry and roughish sort of like a cross between sandpaper and a course canvas.
As I write this Ralf is outside my window in a ground covering grevillea sticking his head up like a periscope every now and then.
It is unfortunate that they fetch high prices because they are extracted from the wild along with many other snakes and lizards
with most of them suffering a slow death packed in pipes, socks, tiny boxes on their way to other countries. A lot are intercepted at airports and its very sad to see how they are packed to make the journey.
I’m not sure how many of the ones I saw were from legitimate breeders or wild caught as you suggest. But for juvenile’s they go for like $350-400 a piece. I almost adopted on that was posted on Craigs List years ago but his “rehoming fee” was too rich for my blood.
