If you have potential Collared Delma habitat on your property, here are some tips to help these tiny lizards survive.
You can help Collared Delmas on your property.
- Leave rocks in place. Don’t remove them or pile them up.
- Re-turn rocks if turned. If you do turn over a rock, put it back where it came from. If it’s a surface rock, leave it on the surface. If it is a partially submerged rock, then put it back into the dip that it came from.
- Control weeds. Especially weeds that cover and carpet the understorey, such as Cat’s Claw Creeper, Creeping Lantana, Corky Passion Vine and dense introduced grasses such as Guinea Grass, Rhodes Grass and Signal Grass.
- Encourage native ground covers. Keep the forest floor open with native grasses and small groundcover herbs. Delmas need sunlight to reach the forest floor and warm the rocks that they live under.
- Retain logs and fallen timber. These provide great habitat for the small invertebrates that Collared Delma eat, such as small cockroaches, termites, slaters and spiders.
- Minimise wildfire risk. Try to minimise the risk of wildfires by maintaining fire breaks, keeping the understorey somewhat open through weed management and, potentially, doing a low-intensity controlled cool burn. Collared Delmas probably won’t survive a hot fire.
DON’T
- Let your chickens or other poultry scratch around in bushland areas. They will eat Collared Delmas.
- Don’t plant up the understorey to make it thick with plants. Collared Delmas need an open forest floor with lots of sunlight, exposed rocks and leaf litter.
- Don’t remove, pile up or turn over natural rocks. Leave them where they are. Collared Delmas slide between the gap of surface rocks and the ground to shelter and breed. If their home is regularly disturbed (i.e. rocks are flipped), they will abandon it.
