These facts are a lot easier to digest than thorny devils.
- In 1841, John Gray, a zoologist from Britain, wrote about thorny devils, and he applied the scientific name of ‘Moloch horridus’ to them, naming them after an ancient god, ‘Moloch’, and the Latin word ‘horridus’, meaning prickly.
- ‘Thorny devils’ are also known as ‘thorny lizards’, ‘mountain devils’, ‘thorny dragons’ and ‘molochs’, being the only species of ‘Moloch’ lizards, and they are from the family Agamidae, the family of dragon lizards.
- The typical length of thorny devils is 15 to 20 centimetres (6 to 8 inches), with males being typically smaller than females, and they have a lifespan of 15 to 20 years.
- Thorny devils are native to the shrubby deserts of Australia, particularly in Western Australia and usually live among areas that have sandy soil.
- Thorny devils are typically brown, cream and tan in colour, that camouflages them in desert, but the colour shades can change with the temperature.
Thorny Devil
Image courtesy of National Geographic
- The body of thorny devils is covered with sharp thorns, mainly acting as protection against predators, however sometimes a lizard becomes the meal of a goanna or bird of prey.
- Thorny devils have a head-like bump on their back that is shown to predators when feeling threatened, instead of their real head.
- Thorny devils feed on thousands of ants every day, that they gather with their sticky tongue.
- In Australia’s spring and summer, thorny devils lay three to ten eggs, in a hole approximately 30 centimetres deep.
- Thorny devils collect dew on their backs, that is channeled to their mouth via grooves that sit between their spikes.
Bibliography:
Pianka E, Australia’s Thorny Devil, n.d, Varanus, http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/moloch.html
Thorny Dragon, 2013, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorny_dragon
thorny devils are awesome