A Story of Dragons
Let me introduce you to Tympanocryptis pinguicolla. In Latin its name means “hidden (ear)drum fat neck”. It is also known as the Victorian Grassland Earless Dragon, and its story is rather special.
Early in 2023 I was talking with my nephew, who works in conservation, about an Environmental Impact Assessment I’d read recently pertaining to our local grasslands. In very simplified terms, the conclusion of the report was “These grasslands have already been significantly degraded by agriculture so the impact of urban development on the environment would be insignificant.” People need housing, and urban expansion is inevitable, but how easily we brush aside the fact that the resulting destruction of habitat is often irreversible.
It was during this conversation that Tim mentioned a tiny dragon which relied on those very grasslands for survival, and which had not been seen since 1969. Conservationists had continued searching in the hope of finding a survivor but, with the last sighting being more than fifty years ago, the Victorian grasslands earless dragon was about to be officially declared extinct.
Land marked out for new housing, Epping, 2019. This is now a housing estate.
How thoughtlessly we can dismiss environments such as grasslands as featureless or boring. How convenient to regard them as terra nullius, no-one’s land, empty and barren. Yet, if we took the time to look and listen, we would discover an intricate, finely balanced world of wonder; plants and animals found nowhere else on earth which have an intrinsic beauty and wonder of their own, and which are needed individually to help maintain the fine balance of life in this environment. Orchids, daisies, lilies, peas and grasses designed specifically to thrive in the shallow soils provide nectar for pollinating insects, which in turn are necessary to the survival of small birds and reptiles. Such as the lost earless dragon. The plight of this vulnerable, seemingly insignificant little creature captivated my interest. I wanted its sad story to be told.
So I included it in my story of the old redgum. I described how when the tree first sprouted “a tiny dragon, small enough to hide in the burrow of a wolf spider, basked on the rock which gave them both shelter from summer grass fires and winter frosts.” Then, when creating a picture of the changes brought by farming, I mentioned that “the last tiny earless dragons disappeared, unable to make a safe home in the pastures which had replaced the native grasslands.”*
(*Note: Grazing land is not necessarily a poor habitat for dragons. They prefer clear spaces between tussocks of grass and good land management practices can provide theses conditions.)
I had a difficult time finding a suitable photo of Tympanocryptis pinguacolla as there were, of course, no recent photographs. On inquiry I found that it resembled its Canberra cousin, T. lineata closely enough to use it as a reference for my artwork.
It was when I had just finished this illustration that my friends at the Grassland Earless Dragon Alliance shared some joyous news on Instagram: the Victorian Grassland Earless Dragon had been rediscovered!
The dragons were found on farmland which had been grazed by sheep for many years, by a team of ecologists who were conducting a planning survey for a company intending to use the land for housing development. The full story can be read here.
A Victorian Grassland Earless Dragon at Melbourne Zoo. Photo courtesy of Arthur Stark.
Zoos Victoria is now leading the fight to bring this “Lazarus species” back from the brink of extinction. Their captive breeding program aims to increase understanding of the species and to maintain an insurance population, eventually enabling dragons to be reintroduced into the wild. Click on the image above to find out more about this project.
The Grassland Earless Dragon Alliance is also working to champion the cause of these little reptiles. Their work includes monitoring and research to further conservation efforts, and to educate people. Encouraged by the rediscovery of our Victorian dragon, they are working tirelessly to search for its cousin, T. mccartneyi, which last recorded in the Bathurst area in the 1990s. (Click on the image.)
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People need homes, and hard decisions have to be made when balancing those needs with the responsibility of preserving our environment from irreparable harm. The Victorian Grassland Earless Dragon was rediscovered by people whose job it is to conduct studies into biodiversity and advise the authorities on environmental issues in their decision-making. But for all of us, stopping to truly consider the wondrousness of nature will leave us more thoughtful, more thankful and more aware of our responsibility as stewards of creation.