Master bluffers
You know why I love coming to Australia? You can find the most extreme animals there. Animals like the collar lizard! These lizards can bluff like the best of them! They look like dinosaurs. Of all the lizards that live in Australia, this is really my favorite. What a tough animal!
Hotheads
I am walking through a marshy swamp when I see a ruffed lizard for the first time. How fat! It is sitting on a tree trunk and watching me silently. I sneak closer and just as I am about to pick up the animal, something very special happens. HOP - it unfolds its big leathery collar. HolyMoly! What an impressive sight. Really not normal.
"Collared lizards unfold their collars by opening their mouths wide. An enemy looks straight into their maw that way, which is of course fat scary!"
Surprise
Usually the collar of a ruffed lizard hangs limply over its shoulders. But when danger threatens, it hissingly flips open its large collar like an umbrella. Snakes and other enemies are startled. The lizard suddenly looks twice as big! With this, frilled lizards hope to scare off their attackers ... And if this doesn't work, they just take off. On their two hind legs, frilled lizards sprint away. Real heroes in socks!
