City-Slicker Dragons

Australia’s water dragons are being changed by urban life.

- Steve Wilson

A LIZARD BASKS IN the subtropical sun. It’s almost a metre long and powerfully built, with muscular hind limbs and an impressive crest of spines running down its neck and back. It warily eyes a similar large male lying nearby; both are scarred from recent disputes.

Yet it seems indifferent to people crouching around, taking photos with their phones and posing for selfies. For these lizards aren’t in the bush. They’re sprawled out beside an ornamental pond in central Brisbane just a few hundred metres from the bustling Queen Street Mall and Roma Street Transit Centre.

Water dragons live along almost every water course in eastern Australia. They’re not fussy; pristine rivers, polluted suburban creeks, even ornamental ponds will support populations. Away from urban areas, they’re shy and difficult to approach, primed to plunge into a river, shin up a tree or vanish into the undergrowth at the slightest disturbance.

But city-slicker dragons are different. They’ve grown used to us, readily accepting handouts and even lurking under restaurant tables, ready to snap up fallen morsels.

Brisbane’s water dragons are thriving, with healthy populations occupying parks and gardens across the inner city. And, it seems, their unusual choice of habitat is causing them to evolve rapidly. The busy hubbub we associate with city life – roads, railway lines, shopping malls – has isolated certain populations, acting as a barrier that’s just as effective as an ocean around islands, leading to a scenario that’s been dubbed ‘archipelagos of the Anthropocene’ by researchers from the University of Southern Queensland.