{"id":3333,"date":"2013-07-01T15:18:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T07:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/?p=3333"},"modified":"2013-07-06T15:20:02","modified_gmt":"2013-07-06T07:20:02","slug":"bobtail-lizard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/01\/bobtail-lizard\/","title":{"rendered":"Bobtail Lizard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130603-047.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3377\" alt=\"20130603 047\" src=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130603-047-199x300.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130603-047-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130603-047.jpg 354w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a>Shorty was my &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/474927719248895\/permalink\/479672225441111\/\" target=\"_blank\">donkey ears<\/a>&#8221; today, teaching me to stop rushing and\u00a0take time to stop and observe. \u00a0 We have a regular routine with at least 4 walks and she normally just sleeps when I am at my desk during the rest of the day. \u00a0Occasionally she wants some more exercise or wants to play during and her trick is to go and find a sock then flap it around. \u00a0She has me well trained as she looks so cute and imploring that I can&#8217;t ignore her. \u00a0 \u00a0She came for me just after 1pm, so I went out with the camera, hoping to see <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/26\/big-boy\/\" target=\"_blank\">more kangaroos<\/a>. \u00a0I\u00a0found some orchids and Shorty found a blue tongued bobtail lizard.<\/p>\n<p>She is really <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/11\/hiding\/\">good when she finds anything scaly<\/a> and doesn&#8217;t go too close, she just stands in an excited pose with her head tilted and her tail up and wagging. \u00a0Sometimes she yaps, if I don&#8217;t notice her, but I went over straight away to see what she had found. \u00a0It is unusual to see a bobtail in winter as they normally stay inactive in an underground burrow. \u00a0This one had obviously come out to bask in the sun. \u00a0It looked thin, and didn&#8217;t move much. \u00a0I stayed back so as not to frighten it and waste any of its energy. \u00a0I have already seen the <a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/27\/blue-tongue\/\" target=\"_blank\">blue tongue on one of these lizards<\/a>\u00a0a couple of years ago in Spring, so I didn&#8217;t provoke it.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tiliqua_rugosa\" target=\"_blank\">bobtail lizards <\/a>are one of the largest skinks in Australia. \u00a0They can reach a length of 45 cm\/18&#8243; and can live for over 20 years. \u00a0They generally pair bond and the female\u00a0bobtails give birth to live young about four months after mating, usually between December and April. \u00a0The embryos develop in the female&#8217;s oviduct with the help of a placenta, like a mammal, which the young eat after birth. The young are ready to look after themselves straight after birth, and disperse to live on their own within a few days.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-125.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3361\" alt=\"bobtail lizard\" src=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-125-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-125-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-125.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-124.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3362\" alt=\"bobtail lizard\" src=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-124-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-124-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-124.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shorty was my &#8220;donkey ears&#8221; today, teaching me to stop rushing and\u00a0take time to stop and observe. \u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","category-wildlife"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701-124.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3333"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3391,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3333\/revisions\/3391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmiller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}