Lamington plateau

The other weekend I went up to the Lamington Plateau with a friend of mine. We were hoping to find a bunch of Coeranoscincus reticulatus (after my extraordinary luck with them last time). Sadly, no coeranoscincids were to be found. But we did see a bunch of other stuff.

Saproscincus rosei

Saproscincus rosei

We walked down to a creek/waterfall. We found a feisty Lamington spiny cray (Euastacus sulcatus) moving from a small pool to the main creek.

Lamington spiny cray (Euastacus sulcatus). We found her as she was moving from this small pool of water to the main creek.

Close up of her head. That’s a Temnocephalan on her carapace.

She maintained this threat display the entire way…

…as she slowly backed towards the creek…

…over some rocks…

…and to the safety of the water.

Eulamprus murrayi

We hung around at the creek until the Sun started to go down. This seems to be the best time to find Coeranoscincus. We then started walking back up the path, but failed to find any of our target skinks. In fact, we failed to find pretty much anything, until we came across a golden-crowned snake (Cacophis squamulosus) sitting on the path.

Golden-crowned snake (Cacophis squamulosus)

We made it back to the car, cooked some food, then started driving back home. Along the way we found a Stephens’ banded snake (Hoplocephalus stephensii), my first for the Lamington Region. We followed him as he moved off the road and into a tree.

Stephens’ banded snake (Hoplocephalus stephensii)

He started to gape at us, so we took the hint and left him alone. In this pic you can see the small fangs at the front of his mouth.

An angry Stephens’ banded snake (Hoplocephalus stephensii).

We left the snake alone, and continued on to some large trees either side of the road. This looked like great habitat for southern leaf-tailed geckos (Saltuarius swaini), so we got out to have a poke around. We soon found one. I also got up close and personal with another rainforest inhabitant.

Southern leaf-tailed gecko (Saltuarius swaini)

Southern leaf-tailed gecko (Saltuarius swaini)

Stinging tree. They don’t sting, they friggin’ KILL! I was looking for geckos on the large tree in the background. I noticed the stinging tree when I walked up to the tree, but I evidently have the memory of a goldfish because I walked straight into the stinger when I walked away. The guy I was with thought it was very amusing. After about 15 minutes of me hobbling around and muttering obsenities under my breath, the pain started to subside. Apparently I was let off quite easily, because the stings can be quite serious.

As we continued down the mountain, we stopped at some ponds. We heard Litoria revelata calling, but failed to see any of them. Back on the road we found another golden-crowned snake and an eastern small-eyed snake (Cryptophis nigrescens).