Saving the pink-tailed worm-lizard

Summary

The Pink-tailed Worm-lizard (Aprasia parapulchella) is a fossorial (meaning it has adapted to burrowing in the ground) reptile known to only a small number of rocky outcrops in Victoria and the ACT. The Pink-tailed Worm-lizard is very small (measuring up to 25 centimetres in length) and has only two small limb flaps instead of legs leading it to resemble a worm. 

The Pink-tailed Worm-lizard is highly sensitive to environmental changes. In Victoria, the species is restricted to only one population in woodlands in the Bendigo region. This highly threatened population is surrounded by residential development which places it at great risk of extinction from domestic cats, fuel reduction burning and habitat degradation.

Project Strategy

Threatened Species Conservancy will bring together specialists to form a working group, develop a recovery strategy and begin implementing this strategy. This two-year project will undertake the following actions to support the development of a recovery strategy:

• Undertake a genetic analysis.

• Develop monitoring protocols.

• Survey all historical Pink-tailed Worm-lizard sites.

This will lead to a greater understanding of the conservation ecology of the Pink-tailed Worm-lizard and provide a guiding document for its recovery. The working group, inpartnership with Deakin University, will provide advocacy for the Pink-tailed Worm-lizard into the future preventing it's extinction locally. Threatened Species Conservancy is perfectly placed to undertake this project as strategic recovery planning is our core business. This is a pilot project for a larger state-wide project that Threatened Species Conservancy will undertake to address strategic threatened species recovery planning for all non-iconic threatened species across the state.

This project will increase collaboration by bringing together specialists from across Australia to form a working group. This group will have representatives from various research, government, indigenous and community organisations. The working group will inform the development of a recovery strategy that will coordinate the planning and action needed to save this species from extinction in Victoria. Threatened Species Conservancy has formed a partnership with Deakin University to develop a PhD to run alongside this project. The PhD student will be working closely with Threatened Species Conservancy ecologists to answer some of the pressing questions that will allow the working group to make decisions informed by current science which will lead to improved land management practices.

Partners

Deakin University

Don Driscoll is Professor of Terrestrial Ecology in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at Deakin University. Professor Driscoll is a conservation biologist with expertise in how fauna use and move around landscapes. His current projects investigate how reptiles, beetles and butterflies respond to habitat fragmentation and degradation. Professor Driscoll also chairs Deakin University’s Centre for Integrative Ecology that researches how nature and society respond to a rapidly changing world.