Real Dragonfly Hunter Found, Green Lizard

In last article I wrote about dragonflies found in my garden but I couldn't present the real hunter of the dragonfly. Food cycles maintain the survival and spread of each and every living creature.

_{Simple diagram of a food chain which includes dragonfly source}

Green Lizard, is a reptile which you called "Katussa" in Sinhala. There are various kinds of lizards, and I have identified common green forest lizards and oriental garden lizards from my garden.

The one I am talking about here is a Common Green Forest Lizard, which is bright green in color. This color makes them invisible.

When searching about the food habit of green lizards, It says green lizards eat small insects like rickets, flies, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, and dragonflies.

I was waiting till a moment to capture the feeding time of a green lizard. If you carefully watch, you can see what's there in his mouth. Finally, it's a dragonfly!

I accidentally saw him on a lime tree holding a dragonfly with a red abdomen. Lizard seems already dead because I didn't see any movement. Facts say a dragonfly beats its wings 30 times per second, and imagine how fast a lizard should be. Lizard has a sticky and long tongue which helps him to catch flying insects like dragonflies.

It says their tongue is twice as their body. Eeew.. It can be like this 👇

_source

The green lizard didn't take a minute to swallow the dragonfly which is about 3 inches in size. The lizard didn't move his position and didn't pay attention to me, who was standing under him.

There wasn't much after his meal so that I went out for a moment.

I came back after 30min and the lizard was still there. But I noticed his head is red. Is he in love? I searched why his head turned red. Google says the head of male lizards turns red during their breeding season. Redhead makes their enemies afraid and marks the ownership of its territory. But if you know more about lizards, let me know, why his head turned red only for few minutes.

He looks angry.

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My Lizard Photography Collection
Lunch Hour Dragonfly Hunt

_{10% of this article goes to sl charity}