The Australian Eastern Water Dragon

Updated: 16 March 2013

We are fortunate enough to live with a bushland reserve at our back fence. It is a steep gully, complete with a creek, and some of the neighbours are water dragons. I'm no expert, but I think these are the common Eastern Water Dragon, Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii.

We rescued one some years ago when it was stuck in an old wire fence, and like to think the family have remained good friends ever since ;)

One is living under our garden shed, and a baby under one of our water tanks. As you will see from the pictures, they have very long tails. They are not supposed to grow above 1 metre in length including the tail, but I have seen one down on the creek that was at least 500mm across his back legs, so I reckon he/she was at least 1.5 metres long. It's a nice area for dragons!