The final field season for Jon Salisbury’s PhD work on Jacky dragon dorsal patterns has commenced. Jon’s activities began locally at sites around Melbourne before driving to the coast a couple of times to the area around Point Hicks and Cape Conran. This is a coastal site where lizards can be found throughout the heathland basking on the ground and elevated perches. It is an area of natural beauty and a lovely place to be ‘working’.
Jon’s work involves photographing lizard dorsal patterns as well as perch sites and habitat. Jon’s other task for the early part of the season is to locate gravid females. He will bring these back to La Trobe where he will allow the females to deposit their eggs (returning the females to the wild afterwards), incubate the eggs and raise the offspring to see how dorsal patterns change through ontogeny.
