StephenZozaya
Not so new Member
Back in May I decided that I wanted to do something special for my 21st birthday. I wanted it to involve reptiles, something new, and due to my lack of a vehicle it had to be somewhere nearby. I decided that I wanted to climb Mt. Elliot, south of Townsville, in order to look for the riverine leaf-tailed gecko (Phyllurus amnicola). You may remember a post by Moloch regarding this species. The geckos are endemic to the boulder-lined creeks of Mt. Elliot at altitudes above 400m asl. Mt. Elliot is a southern outlier of the Wet Tropics bioregion and has rainforest growing at its summit as well as along the various creeks. Besides the gecko, the mountain is also home to two other endemic herps; the skink Glaphyromorphus clandestinus and the southern-most occurring Australian microhylid frog Cophixalus mcdonaldi. The mountain, and therefore the entire range of these three herps, lies within the boundaries of Bowling Green Bay National Park.
I rounded up my friends Kris (NaivePom) and Pete (Palex134) to join me in heading up the mountain. The trek involves an 8km walk from the recreational area at Alligator Creek to the base of the Alligator Falls, followed by a steep climb up the falls. I have visited Alligator Creek several times over my duration here in north-east Queensland, but I have never done any real extensive herping there. On my first visit during a field trip in 2008 I saw this lace monitor (Varanus varius) browsing about the picnic area.
I visited again over a year later and came across another lace monitor. Recently, I compared the markings of the two and discovered that it was the same individual as before!
Enough digression, lets press on to the geckos. The walk to the base of the falls is the easy part. The walk is relatively flat and only involves wading through a few creeks. Over the course of the walk we came across a few eastern striped skinks (Ctenotus robustus) as well as the occasional tommy roundhead dragon (Diporiphora australis).
After reaching the falls we took some time to take in the landscape and rest before the ascent. We also chased a few Lampropholis mirabilis around. These skinks are endemic to the Townsville area and I have yet to photograph one, despite how often I have seen them.
Alligator Falls. Pete can be seen in the lower-left with a Canon DSLR entirely messing with the sense of scale on the lower-right.
The ascent up the falls was extremely steep and quite difficult with our large bags. Nevertheless, we made it over the falls and began looking for a suitable creek to spend the night looking for the geckos. En route we nearly stepped on a burton's snake-lizards (Lialis burtonis).
We began searching for the gecko a bit after sunset. It wasn't too long before I found the first one near the base of a large boulder. We quickly found more.
Phyllurus amnicola
One boulder yielded this little zigzag velvet gecko (Oedura rhombifer). It was a very uncooperative little gecko and absolutely refused to remain still.
My favourite gecko of the trip was this tiny juvenile Phyllurus amnicola. It was less than 5cm SVL. Most of the adults we encountered were between 9-11cm snout to vent.
While walking back down the creek Kris decided that it would be a great idea to slip 2 metres off a boulder and land on his pinky finger, bending it every which way. We decided to climb down then and there while his adrenaline was high and the pain was relatively low, rather than wait till daylight when we could more easily navigate the steep climb down. Fortunately, the climb down went well and the walk back to the car was filled with Pete and I outlining to Kris how we were going to grab some syrupy cokes from maccas (McDonalds) before dropping him off at the hospital. In the end Kris had it his way.
Thats about it for this post. I hope you enjoyed the leaf-tailed goodness!
Stephen
I rounded up my friends Kris (NaivePom) and Pete (Palex134) to join me in heading up the mountain. The trek involves an 8km walk from the recreational area at Alligator Creek to the base of the Alligator Falls, followed by a steep climb up the falls. I have visited Alligator Creek several times over my duration here in north-east Queensland, but I have never done any real extensive herping there. On my first visit during a field trip in 2008 I saw this lace monitor (Varanus varius) browsing about the picnic area.
I visited again over a year later and came across another lace monitor. Recently, I compared the markings of the two and discovered that it was the same individual as before!
Enough digression, lets press on to the geckos. The walk to the base of the falls is the easy part. The walk is relatively flat and only involves wading through a few creeks. Over the course of the walk we came across a few eastern striped skinks (Ctenotus robustus) as well as the occasional tommy roundhead dragon (Diporiphora australis).
After reaching the falls we took some time to take in the landscape and rest before the ascent. We also chased a few Lampropholis mirabilis around. These skinks are endemic to the Townsville area and I have yet to photograph one, despite how often I have seen them.
Alligator Falls. Pete can be seen in the lower-left with a Canon DSLR entirely messing with the sense of scale on the lower-right.
The ascent up the falls was extremely steep and quite difficult with our large bags. Nevertheless, we made it over the falls and began looking for a suitable creek to spend the night looking for the geckos. En route we nearly stepped on a burton's snake-lizards (Lialis burtonis).
We began searching for the gecko a bit after sunset. It wasn't too long before I found the first one near the base of a large boulder. We quickly found more.
Phyllurus amnicola
One boulder yielded this little zigzag velvet gecko (Oedura rhombifer). It was a very uncooperative little gecko and absolutely refused to remain still.
My favourite gecko of the trip was this tiny juvenile Phyllurus amnicola. It was less than 5cm SVL. Most of the adults we encountered were between 9-11cm snout to vent.
While walking back down the creek Kris decided that it would be a great idea to slip 2 metres off a boulder and land on his pinky finger, bending it every which way. We decided to climb down then and there while his adrenaline was high and the pain was relatively low, rather than wait till daylight when we could more easily navigate the steep climb down. Fortunately, the climb down went well and the walk back to the car was filled with Pete and I outlining to Kris how we were going to grab some syrupy cokes from maccas (McDonalds) before dropping him off at the hospital. In the end Kris had it his way.
Thats about it for this post. I hope you enjoyed the leaf-tailed goodness!
Stephen
