For a few years I’ve been driving along the road up to Mt Glorious. Not continuously, obviously, but whenever the weather looks like it might entice a few reptiles out. This road is well known for the diversity and number of reptiles that can be found on it when the conditions are suitable.
Over the last few years I’ve driven up there a few times, with the results ranging from dismal to good to great. The one species I’ve wanted to find up there has been Stephens’ banded snake (Hoplocephalus stephensii), but I’ve never had any luck. Until last night.
Thursday and Friday afternoons saw a small amount of rain fall over Brisbane and the surrounding areas. I thought if Saturday was hot with no rain, we might get some good reptile action at Mt Glorious. On Saturday Alecia and I went over to North Stradbroke Island to help a friend with her research project. We had some unexpected delays and didn’t leave Straddie until the early evening. It had indeed been hot all day, so we definitely wanted to go to Mt Glorious, but we didn’t have time to go home and get all the appropriate equipment, such as torches or Alecia’s camera. Luckily we did have one torch in the car, and my camera.
Anyway, we drove to Mt Glorious and soon found a southern spotted velvet gecko (Oedura tryoni). Oedura is Alecia’s favourite genus of gecko, so she was pretty excited. Alecia moved the lizard off the road and took some pics.
A few minutes later we slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a snake. It just looked like a little black snake to me, but Alecia yelled “Hoplocephalus!!” (Yes, she even yelled it in italics – that’s how much of a smart scientist she is!) Alecia jumped out of the car (with our sole torch) to keep an eye on the snake while I moved the car off the road. After I’d parked the car, I ran over to help Alecia move the snake off the road. Alecia was trying to pick up the snake on a snake hook, but the snake wasn’t being a willing participant. Just then, another car came racing up the road. I started to wave our little LED head torch at the car to try to get it to stop. I thought as a last resort we could just flick the snake off the road to save it being squished, even if that meant we didn’t get any photos. Thankfully the car stopped. Just as I was trying to figure out what to tell the driver, a voice from the car yelled out “Stewart, is that you?”. It turns out that Peter, a friend of mine from university, was driving the roads behind us looking for snakes as well. Small world!
We eventually moved the snake off the road and took some pictures of it.
What looked like being a very uneventful and ill-prepared trip turned out to be the pinnacle of our recent reptile-hunting adventures! Now that I’ve ticked the number one reptile on my list, I have to figure out which one I want to find next. I’m planning another trip to Lamington National Park to look for southern angle-headed dragons and marsh snakes.
