Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 86(1), March 2003 
General observations 
Pogona minor appeared to have two patterns of 
movement based on information gleaned from the trail 
of nylon thread. They either moved about in what 
appeared to be a random pattern, foraging in logs, 
bushes or leaf litter that they encountered, or moved 
'purposefully' in a particular direction. When the lizards 
were moving in a particular direction they would often 
go around or under bushes and logs in preference to 
through or over them. When these lizards were foraging 
the nylon thread was tangled and woven through the 
bushes, logs and leaf litter as they presumably searched 
the micro-habitat for prey. There were no obvious 
differences in the patterns of movement between males 
and females. 
Pogona minor were often located early in the morning 
before they were active. They were normally found 
asleep under a bush in a shallow depression in the 
organic litter, on top of a saltbush (Atriplex spp) or 
bluebush (Maireana spp), or lying along a branch or twig 
in the canopy of larger shrubs (mostly Acacia spp). If the 
lizard was located during the warmer part of the day, it 
was frequently found on bare ground away from 
vegetation. In all cases when located during the day, P. 
minor made no attempt to run, and simply remained 
motionless. Lizards only moved away when disturbed 
(i.e. when recapture was attempted). 
One individual lizard, on two occasions, 
systematically moved between bull-ant mounds 
(Myrmecia spp). On the first occasion, eight bull-ant 
mounds were visited in 112 m, and on the second 
occasion three bull-ant mounds were visited in 220 m. 
On both occasions the nylon thread indicated the lizard 
was passing through an area with little vegetation. 
Another captured lizard was found with a mouth full of 
chewed ants, confirming that P. minor eats these bull ants. 
Pogona minor often returned to the same location 
multiple times, sometimes days apart. For example, 
lizard #2.16 returned 3 times to the same log pile 2 days 
apart (19/9-21/9 and 23/9-26/9). Another lizard (#3.11) 
was pit-trapped and released on 22 September and 
moved 132 m during the day before breaking the nylon 
thread (linear distance 70.5 m). This lizard was 
recaptured in a pit-trap, three days later (25/9) 25 m from 
its original location. The next day it moved 147 m in a 
similar direction to that which it had done on the 22/9 
(linear distance of 74 m); and on the following day the 
lizard travelled 225m before running out of nylon thread 
within one metre of the previous day's release point. This 
lizard was not seen again. Another female lizard (#3.17) 
moved in a north-westerly direction for a period of three 
days with an accumulated 'foraging distance' of 303.9 m 
to a point where it laid her eggs. The following day she 
returned along the same route (within one metre most of 
the way), a 'foraging distance' of 239.2 m, before the 
thread ran out. Another P. minor (#4.8) crossed the same 
gap in a drift fence where there was a pit-trap three days 
in a row. This lizard also returned to the same bushes 
two days apart. 
Pogona minor often moved over the deep rip lines and 
up and down the steep sides of rehabilitated waste 
dumps. Three different individuals (#2.6, #3.12, #3.15) 
moved between the sides of a waste dump and the top. 
Individual #2.6 was captured (17/9) on the top of the 
waste dump and moved down slope on the 19/9. It spent 
the next 14 days of observation moving around on the 
steep side of the waste dump. This lizard was previously 
caught on 7/4, 50m from the 17/9 capture location, 
indicating that it was still in the same vicinity after 5 
months. Pogona minor #3.15 was first caught on top of a 
waste dump (30/11), moved down the slope and off the 
waste dump onto a top-soil storage pile (4/11), where 
two days later it laid eggs (6/11), then it moved into the 
adjacent undisturbed area (7/11) where it remained for 
two days until it returned (9/11) to the top-soil storage 
pile. 
No lizards were observed to have walked along a drift 
fence or to have climbed out of a 20 L bucket or 150 mm 
PVC pipe used as the pit-traps. Three P. minor (#2.17, 
#3.12, #4.16) climbed over a drift-fence, one (#3.12) 
crossed the top of a 20 L bucket and two others (# 4.8, 
#3.15) crossed the top of a PVC pipe, indicating P. minor 
can easily cross a pit-trap line without being caught. 
Discussion 
Daily distances travelled by P. minor are large 
compared with most other lizards, and are typical of 
widely-foraging lizards. For example, the known daily 
distance travelled by the larger, widely-foraging goanna 
Varanus gouldii (mass = 478.7 g) was 111.6 m day* 1 wheri 
measured using a spool-and-line tracking technique ir\ 
a semi-urban environment (Thompson, 1992); when the 
total distance moved, excluding those days when the 
lizards did not move away from their overnight 
position and including data when the thread broke, ran- 
out or was dislodged, the distance travelled was 180.5 
m day 1 . Sweet (1999) reported the arboreal, widely- 
foraging goanna Varanus glauerti (SVL = 213 mm, mass 
= 92 g) to move a mean linear distance of 33.7 m day* 1 in 
western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. This is 
much less than that of the slightly larger, arboreal and 
widely-foraging goanna Varanus tristis (male SVL = 255 
mm, mass = 228 g, 187 m day* 1 ; female SVL = 255 rr\ l 
mass = 249 g, 100 m day* 1 ) in the Great Victoria Desert, 
or the slightly longer, Varanus glebopalma (SVL = 265 
mm, mass = 179 g) living on the escarpment of western 
Arnhem Land that moved a linear distance of 70.1 m 
day* 1 . So, Pogona minor travelled a linear daily distance 
comparable with that of V. glauerti but less than that of 
the appreciably larger varanids. The slow-moving, sit- 
and-wait, ant-eating agamid Moloch horridus generally 
travelled a greater linear distance per day in the Great 
Victoria Desert (mean for males = 67 m day* 1 , SVL = 78.7 
mm, mass = 31.2 g; mean for females = 32 m day* 1 , SVL 
= 91.0 mm, mass 45.5 g; Pianka et al. 1998) than P. minor 
at Ora Banda. The similar size, sit-and-wait, agamid 
Lophognathus gilberti, on the perimeter of Lake 
Kununurra, confines its daily movements to a much 
smaller area than P. minor with the result that the linear 
distance travelled in a day is much less than that for the 
P. minor (Thompson & Thompson, 2001). Some small 
agamids confine their daily movements to an activity 
area around a couple of burrows or retreats that they 
use on a regular basis (e.g. Ctenophorus ornatus, C. 
inermis, C. maculosus, Bradshaw, 1965; Mitchell, 1973). 
The 'linear distance' moved by these lizards is much 
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