Lizards were the subject of an illustrated talk at Dawlish Probus Club's meeting on monday.
Roger avery, a member of Bishopsteignton Probus Club, gave an insight into the extensive knowledge he had acquired on the subject during 30 years of research as a biologist at bristol University.
There are 3,000 species of lizard worldwide, of which only three currently survive in the UK, though this could increase with global warming.
Lizards have a unique ability to regulate their body temperature, alternatively basking in sun and foraging in undergrowth for food. Mr Avery has been involved in ongoing research to establish how lizards maintain their body temperature involving at the outset pushing a thermometer up a lizard's backside and the use of temperature-sensitive liquid crystals beneath the floor of the enclosure, neither of which proved successful.
More recently, the use of an infra-red video camera has provided an effective method of recording the body heat, said Mr Avery.
There was a pet trade in lizards between the wars, prior to them being declared a protected species. The legislation was first introduced in Jersey where Mr Avery's expertise was utilised to assist a student to under undertake a survey of the islands's lizard population, comprising just two species – the green lizard and the wall lizard.
This proved a lengthy, painstaking process, involving individually counting and photographing the green lizard at selected locations, and recording the distinctive droppings of the wall lizard, which inhabit inaccessible vertical surfaces. Both species were flourishing.
Mr Avery's renown on the subject of lizards has taken him to many parts of the world, including the Cayman Islands, where the large iguana is a native species and the climatic conditions the most inhospitable he has encountered.