Striped Legless Lizard
BIRD: linking the biodiversity community
Categories: Reptiles | Endangered fauna
| Striped Legless Lizard Delma impar | ||||||||||
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The Striped Legless Lizard (Delma impar) is a thin, snake-like lizard, growing up to 300mm, which is unique to the grasslands of southeastern Australia.
It is pale grey to brown in colour with a dark head and often a yellow face and a series of light and dark brown parallel stripes running down the side of its body. The Striped Legless Lizard can be distinguished from snakes because no juvenile snakes in south east Australia have stripes along the entire length of the body.
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[edit] Habitat & ecology
The Striped Legless Lizard lives predominantly in native grasslands dominated by tussock forming grasses such as Kangaroo Grass Themeda triandra or Spear Grass Stipa spp. and is mostly found on the Victorian Volcanic Plains. It has been found it in areas consisting of exotic grasses such as Phalaris, Serrated Tussock and pasture grasses but it is unknown how long it can persist in these exotic habitats.
It is a creature that is rarely seen as it shelters in soil cracks, in crevices under rocks, or in the base of grass tussocks. The Striped Legless Lizard eats caterpillars, crickets, other insects, and spiders. It breeds in summer months and lays two eggs, which take about 5 months to hatch.
[edit] Threats
The major threat is loss of native grasslands habitat which is associated with, removal of rocks, pasture improvement, extended intense grazing, ploughing, frequent and ill-timed burning, weed invasion and urban development.
[edit] Management actions
Protection of native grasslands on roadsides has been achieved in co-operation with various shires on the Volcanic Plains. Advice to landholders with remnant grasslands has also meant protection of important habitat at many sites.
Striped Legless Lizard Project
A recovery team consisting of the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), RMIT University Ecology Research Group and Greening Australia is currently undertaking a project to determine the distribution and status of the Striped Legless Lizard within south-western Victoria.
Stage 1 of the project aims to implement the National Recovery Plan by:
- Determining current distribution of Delma impar in SW Victoria
- Assessing the usefulness and suitability of a passive survey technique for surveying Delma impar
- Developing detection and survey protocol
Surveys of existing and potential habitat are being conducted to determine the population status. In 2004, 220 survey grids were established at native grassland sites throughout the Corangamite and Glenelg Hopkins catchments, including sites within the Upper Hopkins area. In 2005 the project was expanded to include 80 grids across the Wimmera Plain.
The survey grids consist of 50 roof tiles arranged in a 20m x 45m grid with the corners of the grids marked by 1.5m-2m high wooden stakes. Grids have been established to cover a variety of areas including 98 on roadsides, 118 in reserves, 82 on private property with each grid being monitored an average 10 times.
The legless lizards get under the roof tiles because of the tiles thermal properties, which allows successful sampling of this otherwise difficult-to-detect species. If you see a roof tile in native grassland please do not disturb and know it is part of the survey.
Current and historical distribution (Red historical, Yellow currently known)
Results
Over the four years prior to 2008 each survey grid has been monitored an average of 14 times, which equates to about 4200 grids checked and about 210,000 tiles being lifted. The Striped Legless Lizard has been detected at 73 of 330 survey grids, >50% which are located on road reserves. Grassland reserves had about 30% and private property about 20% occurrence. The majority of these sites were previously unrecorded populations and hence the known distribution of the species has now been significantly expanded.
Knowledge on other small grassland fauna species has also been increased with 16 species of skink, seven species of snake, seven species of frog, another species of legless lizard, three gecko species, one dragon species and four species of small mammal also detected under the tiles. Special interest finds include the Curl Snake, Mitchell’s Short-tailed Snake, Tessellated Gecko and Fat-tailed Dunnart.
During the 2008 spring surveys, tail tips were sampled for genetic research. An understanding of genetic diversity is necessary as many populations of Striped Legless Lizard are isolated from each other.
The project is now entering its second phase with an emphasis on understanding the population characteristics of the Striped Legless Lizard, which in turn will assist in on-ground management. We will also be undertaking habitat modelling to assess what factors influence the distribution and persistence of the Striped Legless Lizard. This will be used to determine appropriate habitat management for the species and could include activities such as weed control, altered grazing regimes, and specific fire regimes. This
management will be adaptive and will be done in partnership with the land manager. The habitat models will also allow us to determine sites where the species may be present, but until now have not been surveyed. These sites will be assessed and if suitable, surveyed using our standard tile grid method.
Stage 2 of the project involves
- Implementation of the National Recovery Plan by;
- Assessing population abundances and demographics
- Assessing landscape, habitat and microhabitat factors
- On-ground works to mitigate threats/enhance habitat
- Influence of changed land use
- Determining appropriate management
- Phylogeography and conservation genetics
- Capture-mark-recapture
- Assess population abundances and demographics
- Individuals identified from photos of head scales
- On-ground management
- Weed control
- Grazing exclusion/regulation
- Co-ordinate appropriate fire regimes
- Assess landscape, habitat and microhabitat factors
- What influences presences/absences?
- Influence of current, historical or adjacent land use
- Can landscape models predict presences/absences?
- Impact of adjacent land use on roadside remnants
- Does adjacent land use influence invertebrates?
- Does prey vary between grazing and cropping land?
- Does chemical use effect known prey species?
Future directions
- Intense monitoring of D. impar sites to estimate abundances and demographics
- Ground truth sites from landscape models
- Phylogeography and conservation genetics of D. impar and how it relates to cluster management
- Working with the CFA to assess the effect of fire on roadside fauna, including develop appropriate fire regimes for D. impar as well as other grassland fauna and flora
Native grasslands are endangered, and are critically important for not only the Striped Legless Lizard but many other threatened plants and animals. Native grasslands require active management and regular
burning; Late summer or early autumn every 3 years is the desired approach. Continued burning by the CFA is therefore encouraged.
[edit] See also
- Federal Department of Environment and Heritage Recovery Plan for the Striped Legless Lizard
- FFG Action Statement No.17 pdf
- Striped Legless Lizard information sheets
- Current projects for threatened species & their habitats
- Surveys
- Record sightings
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This BIRD page is brought to you by the South West Integrated Flora & Fauna Team. Feel free to edit, but please take care to preserve the integrity of the data. For example, listed management actions are derived from FFG Action Statements and the Actions for Biodiversity Conservation database administered by DSE and should not normally be changed without prior discussion. SWIFFT does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of information on this page and any person using or relying upon such information does so on the basis that the SWIFFT shall bear no responsibility or liability whatsoever for any errors, faults, defects or omissions in the information. |
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