Class welcomes home long-lost Bluey

Bluey gets up close and personal with Porourangi Manuel, 9, one of the kids from room 3 at Tawhero School. PHOTO/STUART MUNRO 161013WCSM LIZARD1

In early September the tale of Chewy the blue-tongued lizard captured the imagination of Dunedin when he returned home after seven months on the missing list.

But his "record" has been beaten by Bluey, a Gonville-domiciled blue-tongue.

Bluey's owner, Tawhero School teacher Rex Denman, bought the scaly Australian from Animania Pet Shop three years ago as he wanted an interesting class pet. "I was given a turtle tank so I went in to look at turtles, but then I saw the lizards. I had a class of boys back then so I thought a lizard might be a bit more interesting."

Since then Bluey has grown to nearly half a metre long and is a hit with the kids of room 3, who often take the lizard for walks around the school with her perched on their shoulder.

"She loves the attention and the limelight. She'll sit in her tank and watch the class all day."

During Christmas school holidays Bluey goes home to the Denman household and this past December was at home in a strawberry patch. One day in January Mr Denman went out to check on her but Bluey was nowhere to be found.

"The patch had wire on it to keep out the birds, so I thought it would be a safe place she couldn't escape from, but she just vanished. After a while we gave up looking for her and, the other day, I said to my wife we should sell all Bluey's stuff.

"And then my wife went outside and found her sitting on the concrete out the back of our house."

He said the blue-tongued lizard species wasn't equipped to survive a cold New Zealand winter but, somehow, Bluey had reappeared nearly nine months later.

Now she's back at home in room 3 and is more of a star than before - when the Chronicle visited the whole class was keen to "have a hold" of the returned reptile.

"The kids are absolutely rapt ... me too, really," Mr Denman said.