All this recent rain has been causing havoc in parts of inland Queensland. Thargomindah, Charleville, and now St George have been flooded and/or cut off. (Somewhat amusingly, the prediction in December was that we’d get below average rains this season.) While the floodwaters are responsible for what will ultimately be a huge damage bill, the long-term benefits seen in the agricultural sectors in the areas may be substantial. That’s all well and good, but what about the reptiles?!? It’ll be interesting to see how populations of native animals respond to these rains. Depending on how long the moisture stays around, we might see an increase in available food resources, and food may be available over a longer period. Rodent and insect numbers will hopefully increase, in turn leading to an increase in the numbers of their predators (e.g., reptiles, dasyurid mammals, raptors/owls). Population increases as a result of rains such as these are never immediate. Food supply has to increase and persist, existing adult animals have to breed, and the offspring have to survive long enough to become useful. One group of animals that displays a more immediate response to rains is, of course, frogs. I imagine that frogs are going off right now over much of the south-east of the country. I’m not able to venture too far afield at the moment due to work, but I’ve been out in my local area looking for frogs. I found the two species I was after (Litoria brevipalmata and Litoria cooloolensis), which is always satisfying.

Brisbane

Ornate burrowing frog (Platyplectrum ornatum) pair in amplexus

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My friend Melissa messaged me the other night, letting me know she was heading out to the Lamington Plateau to look for various critters. It had been a stinking hot day, so the chances of finding interesting beasties were quite high. Unfortunately I had a heap of work to do, so I started writing a reply to let her know that I wouldn’t be able to join her. Just as I was about send the message, a strange feeling washed over me. It was like my snake-sense was telling me to go; that there was something out there, waiting for me. So I erased my message and phoned Mel to organise the details. Southern dwarf crown snakes (Cacophis krefftii) are known from the Lamington Plateau, and have been the number one species on my ‘snakes I really want to see’ list for quite some time. Maybe my snake-sense was letting me know that tonight would be the night.

Mel picked me up and we headed off to the mountains. The night air was warm and humid, the moon wasn’t too bright, and there was a bit of cloud cover. All in all, pretty good conditions for nocturnal reptiles. We started up the mountain and realised that tonight was going to be a froggy night. Litoria wilcoxii and Litoria latopalmata were jumping around all over the place. At the roadside ponds we heard Mixophyes fasciolatus, Litoria fallax, Litoria peronii, Litoria gracilenta, and no doubt some others that I’ve forgotten about. Once we got up into the rainforest, barred frogs were common on the roads.

Great barred frog (Mixophyes fasciolatus)

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My Children’s python (Antaresia childreni) has been sitting on her clutch of nine eggs since laying them on the 25th of October last year. They hatched on Boxing Day. I had wanted to write a longer post and make mention of brooding behaviour and physiology, but time is against me so I’ll just post some pictures.

Children’s python (Antaresia childreni) and eggs

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A colleague of mine has recently welcomed some new snakes into the world.

Hatchling eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis) siblings. One clutch can produce hatchlings with a variety of patterns and colours.

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I’m a repticker (as my recent Quest for 250 saga shows). I have a list of reptiles that I’ve seen. I like adding to my list. I woke up one day in early October and realised I’d never seen Cyclodomorphus venustus. This both shocked and worried me. What if I got hit by a bus today? Was I really happy knowing that I could die at any moment without seeing what is unarguably the most immaculate of all the Cyclodomorphuses? Of course not. But what to do about it? Jumping out of bed, I grabbed my phone and dialed.
“Hello, Jonno speaking.” My good friend and mentor, Jonno Lucas from Educational Reptile Displays, answered the phone. I knew if anyone could find me my target species, it was Jonno.
“Jonno! It’s me, Stewart”, said me, Stewart. “I’ve just realised that I’ve never seen Cyclodomorphus venustus. Can you help?”
“No worries. I know a spot. I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”
After grabbing my swag, my camera gear and three kilograms of gummi bears, I waited out the front of my house. Thirty-six hours later, Jonno arrived. I tossed my gear in the tray of his ute and climbed aboard.
“So where’s this spot?”, I asked.
“About 100 kilometres west of Windorah.”
“Windorah?!?? That’s 1300 kilometres away! It’ll take at least…” I did some quick calculations in my head. “…14 hours to get there.”
Jonno dumped the clutch and said “That sounds like a challenge.”

Eight and a half hours later we pulled up at the Western Star hotel in Windorah. These outback pubs are well known for having young, attractive, female European backpackers working at them. Sure enough, there was a cute young Irish girl smiling at us from behind the bar. We’d have to turn the testosterone up to eleven. I ordered a can of creamy soda and Jonno ordered a watermelon vodka cruiser. Jonno already has a devastatingly attractive girlfriend, so it was all up to me. Just as well, as I can’t compete with his ponytail and earrings. The Irish lass had been in Australian for just a few weeks before getting the job in Windorah. Unfortunately, she’d been hit on by every guy who’d entered the pub since she arrived and as such, the Irish lass wasn’t in the least bit interested in talking to me. Story of my life, really. At least I still had Jonno.

We downed our drinks and then hit the road again. It was still a few hours before sunset and it was still toasty warm outside. The plan was to drive out of town and see what we could see, before camping overnight and getting to our ultimate destination the next morning. We saw a number of critters on or beside the road.

Yellow-spotted monitor (Varanus panoptes)

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Last night I went up to Mt Glorious with some friends to see what we could see. We walked down to a set of waterfalls. On the way down we saw lots of great barred frogs (Mixophyes fasciolatus) and a golden-crowned snake (Cacophis squamulosus). We were heading down to the waterfall to look for Litoria chloris and L. pearsoniana. We ended up seeing something much more interesting than either species by itself.

Rough-scaled snake (Tropidechis carinatus) eating a red-eyed tree frog (Litoria chloris)

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This is the third story relating to my quest to take my lifetime list of Australian reptile species to 250 before the end of 2009. For previous instalments, read the introduction, the first story, the second story and the second-and-a-half story.

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After the success I had with finding species 248 and 249, the dismal failure of my attempt to find species 250 was a rude awakening. I knew the first two were too good to be true. Not to worry. There were still a fair few local species that I had a good chance of finding. Unfortunately, if I wanted to keep my inheritance I’d have to deal with the little annoyance that is Christmas. Family committments took up Christmas Day, plus Boxing Day and the un-named following day (known, this year, simply as Sunday). During this time I did manage to see some eastern water dragons (Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii) and a saw-shelled turtle (Wollumbinia latisternum), but neither of these were new species for me. When Christmas was over, my search would have to continue.

Today I had planned to drive north of Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast. There are a few spots up there that I’ve been meaning to check out for a few interesting species. But a trip to the Bureau of Meteorology’s website quickly put those plans on hold. There was a lot of rain in the areas I wanted to visit. Not just rain, but large thunderstorms by the look of it. I could have always driven up there and hoped the weather was better when I arrived, but I didn’t really want to waste two hours driving up and two hours driving back down. Today the Sunshine Coast was not living up to its name.

While biding my time and looking at random files on my computer, I came across a journal article describing five new species of skink. One of the newly described species was Lampropholis amicula. This was one of the species I thought I might be able to find locally, but I still thought I’d have to drive for an hour or so to get to some suitable habitat. After reading the article I was surprised to learn that part of the type series of this species had been collected in a patch of bush just around the corner from me. Though it was raining at my place, it wasn’t pouring. I scrapped my plans to go to the (decidedly lacking in) Sunshine Coast and headed to Daisy Hill Conservation Park.

Daisy Hill Conservation Park sign (with a reflective self-portrait as a little present for the ladies).

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This is the second-and-a-half story relating to my quest to take my lifetime list of Australian reptile species to 250 before the end of 2009. For previous instalments, read the introduction, the first story and the second story.

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I just needed to find one more species to achieve my goal of seeing 250 Australian reptile species (over my lifetime) before the year ended. I decided to go up to Mount Coot-tha on the north side of Brisbane to try my luck at finding Oedura jacovae. Long story short, I didn’t find it. I did manage to see some dtella geckos (Gehyra sp.), lots of Asian house geckos (Hemidactylus frenatus), some dwarf sedge frogs (Litoria fallax) and the ubiquitous cane toad (Bufo marinus). Species number 250 had eluded me. The search would have to continue.

Eastern sedge frog (Litoria fallax)

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