For any non-Aussie reading this, I’d like to confuse & inform you that we affectionately call this lizard a ‘Bluey’.
They’re pretty iconic and different species of Bluey live in many parts of Australia. This article is from South Australia but the general information applies to all blueys. I used to have one in my backyard when I lived in Sydney. It got used to seeing me walking around and was happy just to relax on a rock. Where I live now I’ve got bearded dragons and I’ll do a post on them sometime soon.
I actually haven’t nearly trodden on one of Victoria’s insanely lethal snakes for well over a year now.
The topic is blue-tongue lizards.
As for snakes, I’ve lived next to bushland for decades in Sydney & Qld and apart from pythons (which are beautiful, harmless to humans and gently make their way going where they’re going and don’t worry about me (and vice versa) I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve seen any or felt threatened by the others I’ve seen. They get away in any case because they rightly know we are the dangerous and lethal ones (easily proven). Curiously, someone who visited my place who is scared of snakes did find one. Do we attract what we fear? Who knows? The snake of course did no harm or even got defensive and just got away from him.
But what about the drop bears?
We have specially-designed baskets that clip on to people’s heads when they go into drop bear territory. They sometimes also come in handy in magpie swooping season.