Australian brown snakes coil around each other until they look like strands of a rope. The seven foot long lizards called goannas go for a kind of freestyle wrestling. Male goannas attack each other with tooth, claw, and tail. The tail is a key weapon. A lash of the tail can bring a man down in a heap, or break a dog’s leg. Male monitor lizards stand up on their hind limbs and wrestle each other. The weaker animal gives up before it gets injured.
The Gila monster is a poisonous lizard found in the United States and Mexico. It was once plentiful in the Gila River basin of Arizona. That is how the Gila monster got its name. The banded Gila monster and the reticulated Gila monster are the two kinds of Gila monster. It spends 95% of the time underground in burrows. The Gila monster stores fat like a camel does but it stores the fat in its tail. The Gila comes out at night and in early mornings. It is quite active after a thunderstorm.
Bird and reptile eggs are its chief food. Occasionally, it preys on small birds, mammals, and frogs. The Gila monster locates eggs under the ground with the aid of its acute sense of smell. The poison of this lizard is meant for defense. The Gila monster is brightly coloured, so enemies recognize it quickly and avoid it. A drug for diabetes has been isolated from the poison of the Gila monster.
A snake bite can snuff out a life. Interestingly, antivenin prepared from snake poison is used to save the life of a snake bite victim. Antivenin is very costly. There are people who illegally rear poisonous snakes, and sell their poison.
It is wrongly believed that the fat of the spiny tailed and other lizards of our deserts have medicinal value. Oil extracted from the fat of monitors is used for treatment of failing eye-sight in the aged. The blood of the green turtle is regarded as a cure all, and its eggs are said to make a man stronger. Reptiles pay for these false beliefs with their lives.
The tuatara is a strange reptile. Though it looks like a lizard, it is not a lizard. It is not a snake or turtle or crocodilian either. The tuatara has remained unchanged over millions of years. The tuataras in the age of the dinosaurs were same as the tuataras of today. The tuatara is slow by nature. They grow slowly. They live in burrows which are often occupied by seabirds as well. Male tuataras grow to a length of 60 centimetres, but females are slightly shorter. They become adult at about twenty years of age, but continue to grow up to sixty years of age. The female tuatara lays 10 – 15 eggs in a shallow burrow. The eggs take 15 months to hatch; the longest for any reptile. New born babies can look after themselves. Tuataras can live for over 120 years.
The closest relatives of the tuatara died out millions of years ago. The tuatara is the only living representative of the reptile group called Sphenodontida. No one knows why the tuatara survived. Today, it is found on a few small islands off the New Zealand coast.
Some turtles eat only plants, while others eat only animal matter and some eat both plants and meat. Turtles eat abundantly at each meal, but can fast for several weeks without apparent ill effects. The jaws of turtles are a key factor that helps them to chew the variety of foods they love to eat. Green sea turtles, for example, have finely serrated jaws that help them in eating plants, and grass. The snapping turtle will lie on the river bed with its mouth wide open. It has a worm like structure on the floor of its mouth that moves, luring fish straight into its mouth, which the turtle will promptly snap shut. Another important fact about turtle eating habits is that they change their eating habits as they age.
Crocodiles use a very effective technique to catch the prey. As soon as it sights its prey, the crocodile will move silently under water, keeping only its eyes above the surface. When it is close enough, the crocodile rears up and lunges with wide open jaws. Sometimes, the crocodile will wait motionless in one place till the prey comes near enough. It also uses its powerful tail to subdue its prey and drown it -especially if the prey is a large animal.
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