My Backyard Blue Tongue Lizard

Let me introduce you to a very important friend of mine, a blue tongue lizard who lives in my backyard.

He often lies out in the sun warming himself, dashing back under the pavers if we get too close.

Australians like blue tongue lizards because they eat snails and slugs and other pesky creatures.  I'd much rather have a resident lizard than need to put down toxic snail baits.

Although I know he is a blue tongue lizard, I have never seen his tongue.  Blue tongue lizards only stick their tongues out when threatened, and we have never threatened him - well, not intentionally, anyway.  There are a lot of bouncing balls and other perilous things in our backyard, when seen from a lizard's perspective.

And while I have been referring to the lizard as 'he', I really have no idea of its gender.  It would be rather nice if the lizard was a girl.  Then we might have some little lizard babies to admire.