Mountain Tails by Sharyn Munro

Author:Sharyn Munro
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Nature/NATURE Wildlife
Publisher: Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd
Published: 2008-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

SHY YET SHOWY GOANNAS

Only once have I seen a goanna here. It was climbing a stringy-bark tree. Perhaps it was forced out of lower sandstone country by a fire, as this is not typical goanna territory. I’ve kept my eyes open for it or others since, knowing they are shy in the wild, but with no luck. My carnivorous quoll would be a competitor for food, so they may not coexist here.

This particular type of large, long goanna is properly called a Lace Monitor. It’s a matter of personal choice whether you call the family monitors or goannas. They are all predators, so ‘monitor’ might come from the Latin word meaning ‘to warn’. Apparently the word ‘goanna’ is a corruption of ‘iguana’, a tropical American tree-climbing lizard.

As this is the only type I’ve ever seen, mostly in sandy areas, you could say it’s my generic goanna. It’s one of Australia’s largest lizards, with the males sometimes exceeding 2 metres in length. They are strikingly handsome, prehistoric-looking creatures, so on a recent camping trip with a friend, I was pleased to have one visit our campsite.

It checked out the cold campfire and the garbage bag, but was disappointed in our vegetarian scraps—fruit peelings and limp lettuce leaves just can’t compete with chop bones or charred sausages.

Having always been told that, when disturbed, goannas will run up the nearest vertical object, be it tree or person, I kept my distance, wary of those sharp claws. While goannas are not aggressive, their powers are to be respected. Males fight fiercely and in prolonged bouts for the favours of a female, clawing and biting, sometimes to the death.

Spotting us, this one headed up the closest tree and splayed himself like a designer brooch across its broad trunk. He was so long it was hard to fit him in the camera lens. My close clicking disturbed him, and he moved higher up the tree.

He must greet the holiday season with very mixed reactions: possibilities of interesting tucker, but what nuisances people are, never minding their own business, always staring, pointing, exclaiming, clicking, forcing him up trees when he has work to do.

Admiring the dramatic pixellated pattern of stripes and spots on his loose tough skin, I could see where the ‘lace’ part of the name came from. It also recalled certain indigenous art styles, for which perhaps it had been the model. Its colour palette ranged from black to grey, white to cream, with touches of amber—smart and showy.

They are carnivorous, eating any carrion. Where my husband and I used to camp at the Myall Lakes in the early ’70s, before it became a national park, there were lots of goannas, and they would wolf down the stale meat pies a friend saved for them from his takeaway shop.

And many a farmer has cursed the egg thief in the hen house.

I once saw a goanna catch an egg that was tossed to it. It simply opened its vast mouth, flicked its head up and caught the egg in mid-air, swallowing the whole object effortlessly.

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