HI all,
Recently a Mate from Melbourne came up, we ran around the scrub in a few locations looking for a few species that we both wanted to see. The trip for the melbourne local was successful with 11 new species and 4 new ones for me.
The way that we herp, is basically to pick a Location and habitat for a species we want to find. This may be large species or a tiny skink, either way its usually productive and the "By catch" is often fantastic too. Not all species were photographed. So these were highlights ..or done out of boredom
Any way first off was up to a place near my house that had a gecko we wanted too find..the newly described Oedura jacovae and then did a quick run over another likely location
this was photographed earlier in the day
Next day we headed out to a Location looking for an species of Earless Dragon..no luck on them but its good fun finding them. The bonus was the almost legless skink Anomalopus mackayi....these are very hard to find and only known from a small number of specimens in Queensland. Spotted Black Snakes are always a great find too.
Basically The idea is to jump off the car onto the lizard....and not get run over
Next was to return home and leave in morning looking for a particular turtle during the day and looking leaf tail geckos that night....no luck on the leafies and only saw one carpet python that night. however during the day we found what we were looking for....
Elusor macrurus
These are big turtles...this one had a carpace length over 350mm
The smaller Krefft's Turtles were more common
Next day was off looking for a skink..we did not find it but we found a few other things..plenty of bearded dragons, tommy round heads, Ctenotus and a Carlia skinks in the morning, by arvo it was hot and sticky...off snorkeling again in different river for a different turtle...no luck on the target species (we did see a head though) but we did find this little fellow
Emydura kreffti
and plently of water skinks, water dragons and a big Lung Fish.
That night was off to look for another leaf tailed gecko and do a bit of road cruising....the habitat looked like this
Cryptophis boschami
Saltuarius salebrosus
Cyclorana brevipes
Platyplectrum ornatus
A few other snakes were seen such as red naped snakes, more carpets, 18 species of frogs and some more geckos.
The next day while rolling up the swag I saw this Pogona barbata
and plenty of adults like this
the drive home found us more of the same.
Once home checked the captives and then went down into the nearby rainforest were we saw a few bits a pieces like these
Hemiaspis signata
Saproscincus challengeri
Saproscincus rosei
Tropidechis carinatus
and the habitat looked like this:
All in all a successful trip
Cheers,
Scott Eipper
Recently a Mate from Melbourne came up, we ran around the scrub in a few locations looking for a few species that we both wanted to see. The trip for the melbourne local was successful with 11 new species and 4 new ones for me.
The way that we herp, is basically to pick a Location and habitat for a species we want to find. This may be large species or a tiny skink, either way its usually productive and the "By catch" is often fantastic too. Not all species were photographed. So these were highlights ..or done out of boredom
Any way first off was up to a place near my house that had a gecko we wanted too find..the newly described Oedura jacovae and then did a quick run over another likely location
this was photographed earlier in the day
Next day we headed out to a Location looking for an species of Earless Dragon..no luck on them but its good fun finding them. The bonus was the almost legless skink Anomalopus mackayi....these are very hard to find and only known from a small number of specimens in Queensland. Spotted Black Snakes are always a great find too.
Basically The idea is to jump off the car onto the lizard....and not get run over
Next was to return home and leave in morning looking for a particular turtle during the day and looking leaf tail geckos that night....no luck on the leafies and only saw one carpet python that night. however during the day we found what we were looking for....
Elusor macrurus
These are big turtles...this one had a carpace length over 350mm
The smaller Krefft's Turtles were more common
Next day was off looking for a skink..we did not find it but we found a few other things..plenty of bearded dragons, tommy round heads, Ctenotus and a Carlia skinks in the morning, by arvo it was hot and sticky...off snorkeling again in different river for a different turtle...no luck on the target species (we did see a head though) but we did find this little fellow
Emydura kreffti
and plently of water skinks, water dragons and a big Lung Fish.
That night was off to look for another leaf tailed gecko and do a bit of road cruising....the habitat looked like this
Cryptophis boschami
Saltuarius salebrosus
Cyclorana brevipes
Platyplectrum ornatus
A few other snakes were seen such as red naped snakes, more carpets, 18 species of frogs and some more geckos.
The next day while rolling up the swag I saw this Pogona barbata
and plenty of adults like this
the drive home found us more of the same.
Once home checked the captives and then went down into the nearby rainforest were we saw a few bits a pieces like these
Hemiaspis signata
Saproscincus challengeri
Saproscincus rosei
Tropidechis carinatus
and the habitat looked like this:
All in all a successful trip
Cheers,
Scott Eipper
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