Jacky Lashtail
Amphibolurus muricatus
- Class
- Reptile
- Rarity
- Common
- Observations
- 4,792
- Most observed in
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- Conservation
- Least Concern
Description
The jacky dragon (Amphibolurus muricatus) is a type of lizard native to south-eastern Australia. Other common names include blood-sucker, stonewalker, and tree dragon. It was one of the first Australian reptiles to be named by Europeans, originally described by English zoologist George Shaw in Surgeon-General John White's Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, published in London in 1790. The lizard is well-known for its bright yellow mouth and well-developed vertebral crest, as well as the temperature-dependent sex determination of its offspring. The Wergaia people of the Wimmera region of north-western Victoria call it nganurganity. In 2017, the star Sigma Canis Majoris was officially named "Unurgunite" (a 19th-century transcription of nganurganity), due to its identification with the jacky dragon in Wergaia traditions.
Summary adapted from the Wikipedia article “Jacky dragon”.