00:02For more than 15 years, University of Queensland researchers have been studying eastern water
00:07dragons in Brisbane's Roma Street Parkland.
00:10It's become infected with the fungus there, that's that yellow bit there.
00:14So it's entered through the wound and then started an infection in the skin.
00:18But something they first spotted on a single water dragon in 2013 now has them worried.
00:24We caught this individual and we started seeing this yellow crust on its skin and I remember
00:29we went back to the field notes and we said strange disease on the skin and that's how it began.
00:35Now half of the reptiles in the parkland are infected with a fungal pathogen causing skin lesions.
00:41Occasionally what can happen is that the lesion gets so bad that the animal's limb might fall off
00:46or they start to lose digits and so on.
00:48Researchers say little is known about the fungus itself.
00:52That includes where it comes from and the effect it could have on Australia's diverse reptile population.
00:57It doesn't have any treatment and can basically impact the majority of the reptile species we have in Australia.
01:05And yet we know so very little about it and that to me is a problem.
01:10Experts say fungal diseases are a growing concern around the world.
01:14Wildlife disease is something that's incredibly understudied in general and so the more we learn
01:20unfortunately like in this study the more we realise what a potential threat it is to Australia's biodiversity.
01:27This is a problem.
01:28But this is something that we will ensure that the reptile species doesn't exist.
01:29I can không observe how we know that the reptile species is that there are
01:29some of the people of the reptile species that we all know.
01:30I don't see the reptile species all of this from the reptile species that we can't分рав.
01:30I don't see a larger reptile species that we can exhale.
01:31What about the reptile species that we all know about,
01:31You
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