{"id":914155,"date":"2026-10-03T02:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T02:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914155\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T02:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T02:26:14","slug":"man-made-clay-burrows-hoping-to-save-canberra-grassland-earless-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914155\/","title":{"rendered":"Man-made clay burrows hoping to save Canberra grassland earless dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"

You would be lucky to spot a Canberra grassland earless dragon at the best of times, with an estimated 100 or fewer left in the wild. So saving this Canberra critter is critical.<\/p>\n

University of Canberra PhD student Ryan Colley, who has been studying the species’ genetics since 2020, said the dragons were “very hard to see” outside their burrows.<\/p>\n

“You’ll occasionally see one running around, but it’s very rare,” he said.<\/p>\n

In a bid to help the tiny reptiles survive, researchers have now made their own dragon dens out of clay.<\/p>\n

70 degrees and no shade<\/p>\n

ACT Parks and Conservation dragon recovery coordinator Ben Croak said the grasslands could be brutal for an animal so small, being unable to survive temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ben Croak says the summer heat in the grasslands can be lethal to the species. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

“The grasslands get incredibly hot in summer,” Dr Croak said.<\/p>\n

“In the middle of summer, we’ve recorded temperatures up to 70C on the ground, which is incredibly lethal to a little dragon like this.”<\/p>\n

The dragons usually shelter and nest in spider burrows, so the new terracotta tubes are designed to mimic them, dropping about 20 centimetres beneath the ground.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The PVC tubes that have previously been used to monitor grassland earless dragons are not suited to egg-laying. (ABC News: Emily Anderson)<\/p>\n

“The ground’s pretty insulated, and having them around 20cm provides a thermal gradient for them to shuttle up and down,” Dr Croak said.<\/p>\n

“[That way] they can get to the sort of desired temperature they want to be at.”<\/p>\n

PVC tubes have previously been used to monitor the dragons, but Dr Croak said they were not suited to egg-laying.<\/p>\n

Clay holds moisture, which the team hopes will buffer the impact of climate and help incubate eggs.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Dr Croak said the trial would test the tubes ahead of an approaching hot summer.<\/p>\n

“I think they’re like most things, they’ll take advantage of things that are there for them,” Dr Croak said.<\/p>\n

Early signs of promise<\/p>\n

One hundred specially made dragon dens have been installed at two sites in Canberra to give the reptiles a variety of burrows to choose from.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Researchers believe there are fewer than 100 Canberra grassland earless dragons left in the wild. (Supplied:\u00a0Blake Reeves)<\/p>\n

“They’ve taken up the burrows quite quickly, which was a bit of a shock,” Mr Colley said.<\/p>\n

“Because these burrows mimic more of the natural burrows, it was good to see them use those over the PVC burrows.”<\/p>\n

Using an endoscope to peer into the burrows, Mr Colley has been closely monitoring how the new digs are being used.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Ryan Colley uses an endoscope to see into the burrows, which he says the dragons have taken up quite quickly. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

“When you see them in the burrow, they’re curled up at the bottom,” he said.<\/p>\n

A different sort of art installation<\/p>\n

Finding someone to make the burrows was a challenge in itself.<\/p>\n

Dr Croak said he rang around, but finding an artist or workshop interested in a commissioned work of 100 tubes, each 20cm long and “as thin as possible whilst maintaining structural integrity” did not stir the creative juices of everyone.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The dragon burrows are made of terracotta to hold moisture, which the team hopes will help incubate eggs. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

“The loss of artistic licence when it came to just making a clay tube was kind of a deterrent for some people,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Tom from Strathnairn Arts in North Canberra really embraced the idea and pumped them out for us really quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“So it was really, really cool of those guys to do that.”<\/p>\n

Tom has joined the team in the field to see his artwork installed.<\/p>\n

Dwindling gene pool<\/p>\n

Providing shelter and nesting sites is only part of the challenge around the conservation of this critically endangered species.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ryan Colley says grassland earless dragon populations in the ACT are becoming genetically isolated. (ABC News: Simon Beardsell)<\/p>\n

Dragon populations in the ACT are small and isolated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Colley, who also works at the Office of Nature Conservation, said that was a major concern.<\/p>\n

“These populations are becoming quite genetically isolated from each other even though they’re within a short distance,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said the first step was translocating animals between sites in the hope of boosting genetic diversity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You would be lucky to spot a Canberra grassland earless dragon at the best of times, with an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2666,64,63,2667,33801,76079,481728,336679,2668,481730,18329,128,481729,338],"class_list":["post-914155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-act","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canberra","tag-critically-endangered","tag-dragon","tag-earless","tag-grassland","tag-local-stories","tag-man-made-burrow","tag-reptile","tag-science","tag-terracotta-clay-den","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}