Carey Knox calls Aotearoa ‘land of lizards’, he knows a lizard over 60 years old, he discovered the cute guy pictured above, and he’s here to talk all things dry and scaly.

Author, photographer, ecologist Carey Knox is a herpetologist – an interesting scientist who studies reptiles. He moved here to Central Otago to study our special species.   

Carey is in Alexandra to talk to anyone interested in learning more about our amazing reptiles on Thursday evening, at the Haehaeata AGM.  An expert photographer, he will also show images of our local reptilian friends.

“I’ve been working with rare South Island skinks and geckos for over ten years now,” he explains.

“They were a part of New Zealand’s original ecosystem, and today they’re still a vital part of a healthy ecosystem. 

“They eat little berries on our native bushes like Coprosma and disperse the seeds around, they eat invertebrates, and they are a food source for our predatory birds.” 

Carey says there are around 125 species of lizards in New Zealand. That means we have more species of terrestrial lizards than we have birds. 

“A lot of people think of New Zealand as the land of birds, but we’re actually a land of lizards.” 

When we were first colonised, there would have been lizards everywhere. However, Carey says we have since lost 99% of the original biomass of lizards. 

“What we’ve got left is often hiding up in mountains and other out-of-the-way kind of places. 

“But we do still have some really awesome species left here in Central Otago – it’s pretty rocky here and the rocks provide our local geckos and skinks crucial refuge.” 

Carey has a passion for our local lizards.

For Carey, one of the exciting things about working with our lizards is that there are still new species to be discovered.

“Some of them are really cryptic and hard to find, and many of our remote and mountainous areas haven’t been properly explored.”

“This guy (posing above), Hura te ao gecko, was discovered living high up in the mountains of the Oteake Conservation Park, 1600 metres above sea level.

“They only come out at night time, so the only way to find these guys is to go out on a warmish night, which at that altitude means you might be lucky enough to get 9 degrees.

“Only then, they’ll come out in the boulder fields and sit on the surface of rocks.”

Hence it took a long time to discover them. There’s not many people like Carey who are crazy enough to look for geckos at night time on top of mountains.

“Obviously I’m that crazy.”

Our lizards are really long-lived, Carey says, and they’ve been around for much longer than we have.

“We don’t know exactly how long lizards will live for yet because we haven’t been following individuals for long enough.

“The oldest known gecko in New Zealand is 60 years old, and it’s still going strong, so we don’t know what the upper limit is yet.

The newly discovered Hura te ao gecko has been around on this earth for at least six million years, he says. It lived undisturbed until humans came along 500,000 years ago.

”I like to think these species were here millions of years before humans – the amount of time we’ve been here compared to these lizards is like one grain of sand on the beach.”

All of our New Zealand lizards, except for one species, are only found here in New Zealand and they’re being found in less and less places as their natural habitats get smaller.

“We have a responsibility to look after them.”

Carey will talk on Thursday, September 23, 7pm at the Stadium Tavern in Alexandra. To register click here. Alert level two guidelines will apply, with a limit of 100 people attending.

Images supplied