The Sleepy Lizard survey.
Still going strong after nearly 40 years.
The Sleepy Lizard Survey at Bundy Bore Station in South Australia has been described as
‘probably the longest-running lizard survey in the southern hemisphere, if not the world.’
It is one of our favourite research projects and was featured in Issue 3 of iHerp Australia in
November-December 2017.
In late 2016, Professor C. Michael (Mike) Bull unexpected passed away, leaving this ongoing
long-term project in jeopardy. Associate Professor Mike Gardner, of the College of
Science and Engineering at Flinders University, picked up the reins to ensure that this epic
work continues to be a valuable source of information after more than 37 years.
Mike Gardner explains:
Institutions tend to be reluctant to fund long-term studies, and favour projects that produce results in a relatively short period of
time. Mike Bull had the perfect formula; he used the long-term surveys as a scaffold from which to hang short-term projects.
That way he continued to gather the data that provided insight into the long-term aspects of the natural history of the Sleepy
Lizards (Tiliqua rugosa), and at the same time met the requirements of Flinders University and the various funding organisa-
tions. This approach was so successful that I decided to continue with the established methodology, but to expand on it to allow
the project to continue to be valuable into the future. So, in addition to the original types of data that were recorded, we now also
collect biological samples, as well as additional morphological measurements from the lizards in the study site.
The 2017 season was a success. Professor Andrew Sih, from the University of California, and his team spent several weeks at
the study site in the Mid North region of South Australia. They came to collect data from sleepies as part of research that started
in 2016, and focusses on personality, social networks and the spread of parasites through the social network. This year (2018)
they will be back for a few weeks to follow up on some intriguing results suggesting ticks stay on lizards for longer than originally
thought.