You knew that Australia was home to one of the weirdest assemblages of
herps in the world, right? Welcome to:
A BREED APART ....
‘Somebody give me some water!’
Strange; many desert reptiles steadfastly refuse to drink from standing water in captivity. I guess
they’re so well adapted to extracting every last drop of moisture from prey items, and so expert at
retaining it through impervious skins, deep burrows and hyperactive renal systems that they’ve for-
gotten what a real drink is like! Some seem to hardly drink at all, while others will lap up water
droplets sprayed onto enclosure surfaces and furnishings – like dew in their natural environment.
Others, like Stimson’s Pythons, surprisingly appear to relish the opportunity to drink from a bowl,
but there is one lizard that sucks up water in a most extraordinary fashion.
The Thorny Devil or Moloch (Moloch horridus) is a singular creature in many respects. The sole spe-
cies in a genus named after the ‘Prince of Darkness’, the Moloch resides in arid areas wherever a
sandy substrate is present. It is covered in hard spines which may reduce predation from snakes,
and possesses a spiny hump on its neck which serves as a false head; when threatened it typically
lowers its head to present this appendage. It consumes only ants, primarily from the genus Irido-
myrmex, and may plough through thousands in one sitting. Although similar in appearance to the
horned lizards (or horny toads – Phrynosoma spp.) of North America, only a distant relationship ex-
ists in what is plainly a case of convergent evolution. The Thorny Devil walks like a chameleon, peri-
odically freezing, sometimes with one foot off the ground.
Strange as this animal’s appearance may be, its manner of obtaining a drink is completely bizarre.
The spaces between its scales form hygroscopic grooves which channel moisture to the mouth by
capillary action. In this manner, the Thorny Devil is able to take advantage of any dew which may
condense on its body at night, but can also, quite literally, put one foot into a source of water and
suck it up like a sponge!
Photo by Chris Watson.