AUSTRALIA TRIP REPORT PAGE 5 of 7
Dates: September 18-28, 2004
Location: Central-Eastern Queensland, Australia
(September 22nd continued)
A little while later we spotted another Bearded Dragon. This was getting to be better by the minute!
Bearded Dragon - Pogona barbata
These guys were around as well
Eastern Water Dragon
A non-herp event but one that was at least humorous to us anyway… We had seen a couple of Kangaroo’s but mostly just quick glimpses or in thick brush, we chased one for about 45 minutes a few days earlier in Goodnight Scrub National Park. I was saying to my wife how we must be in the wrong environment for Kangaroo’s when I turned around a bend, still in the same residential area and saw the following:
I was starting to get the idea that we had it all wrong! The idea wasn’t to get to the outback but to spend more time in town, driving through neighborhoods!!!!
After a little more driving and sighting a few more ‘roos and dragons we made our way to the Poona National Park proper for some more in-depth investigation. There was a dirt road that I took to the north which looked promising. Here’s the typical habitat in the area:
Poona National Park Area, Queensland, Australia
On the road that leads to this area I found another very disappointing road kill. This Python was still pretty fresh, probably had been out earlier in the morning, it was about 6’ long. On the flip side, this highly renewed my interest in the area!
Carpet Python - Morelia spilota
Back on the dirt road, we stopped in a few interesting spots and hiked around a bit, saw a few interesting birds and more irritating skinks that wouldn’t hold still long enough to see them other than as a blur. We got back in our car and drove to the end of the road, hiked some more, saw a lot of lizard trails (large) but no additional sightings. It was starting to cool off a little bit (today was the warmest day of the trip) and the sun was getting low and I decided that this would be a good area to spend some time after dark. We prepared some equipment for night photography and started to drive back to the main road, there was about 7-8 miles altogether of road that you could drive in the area so the plan was to do several passes starting at dusk and then into the evening. I had to drive back into town (Marysborough) which was about ½ hour away to pick up a flashlight as I had left mine back at my brother-in-laws. On the way back out in the dirt road I saw a flash across the road about 150 feet ahead and was sure it was a snake. When I got to the spot there was a nice trail leading into the brush so I jumped out to see if I could flush it out. I found it almost immediately, it was a Common Tree Snake and it was another fast one! It turned around and headed back to the road, I was able to snap off about 7 shots of which all but one are too blurry but here’s the best of the group:
Common Tree Snake - Dendrelaphis punctulata
Interesting to note that for the trip I now had seen two-thirds of the colubridae that lived in the area!
After the trip into town and back it was now dusk and we started road cruising. It turned out to be pretty good as there wasn’t very much traffic on this particular road and none on the dirt road. The first pass at dusk was not productive but as soon as it got completely dark things started coming out. First there were the Cane Toads, tons of them, so many that it was hard to drive at times without running them over. Unfortunately (again) a car passed the other direction and I said to my wife, want to bet they kill something? Sure enough, on the next pass I found this cool guy:
Burton’s Snake-lizard - Lialis burtonis
Quickly followed by a couple of live herps!
Ornate Burrowing Frog - Limnodynastes ornatus
And these cool Gecko’s which turned out to be very plentiful!
Eastern Stone Gecko - Diplodactylus vittata
Another variation:
Eastern Stone Gecko - Diplodactylus vittata
But the find of the night for me was this guy:
Eastern Brown Snake - Pseudonaja textiles
Eastern Brown Snake - Pseudonaja textilis
Eastern Brown Snake - Pseudonaja textilis
Eastern Brown Snake - Pseudonaja textilis
I know that Pseudonaja are common in the area but it sure was exciting! He was everything I had hoped for in an Australian elapid. Immediately upon me leaving the car to take a look he was in a defensive strike position, hissing, head flattened, then he started striking and actually advanced toward me. We had to position ourselves on either side of him to have a chance at taking pictures. I have never seen a snake so aggressive and my understanding is that there are several species that are even more so than the Brown snake, wow! Since it was totally dark I had to use a smaller lens and flash which meant getting closer and he didn’t want any part of that. As you can see in the pictures he is facing away from the camera, his attention is on my wife who is just off camera. After a minute or two he calmed down slightly and then quickly took off across the road and into the brush. There isn’t any good perspective in these shots but the snake as at least 5’ in length.
That was it for the night and pretty much it for the trip, there was one more opportunity for herps the next night so read on…
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- Thanks! - Brad Weinert -
) Thanks, you have confirmed what someone else suggested as well, appreciated!