14.June.2016 (Day 9)

The toads go marching ten by ten

I mentioned earlier that my study site, Harrison dam, was created originally so that people could grow rice up here. If water were never ending I could see it potentially working, but after only a week here I can tell that things start to dry up pretty quickly under the sweltering heat.

The second plan to use the area after rice didn’t work was water buffalo. They’re still wandering around all over the place. I’ve seen their eyes shining in the distance under my flashlight, but this was my first time up close and personal with one.

Water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)

Seeing one in person seemed pretty novel to me. Turns out there are over 130 million of them worldwide and more human beings depend on them than any other domestic animal.

Thanks buddy.

Last night was a pretty big success. I managed to capture four more children’s pythons, and 32 cane toads.

Kind of a good news bad news sorta thing. Good news, a lot of animals in one night from the same spot. Bad news, getting in at 10pm and then having to process them all until the wee hours of the morning.

Not to mention collecting blood samples from the cane toads can be rather gruesome.

More on that later though.

I also found an animal that my advisor Dale at ASU had gotten me pretty excited about, an olive python. It’s Australia’s second largest snake (Scrub python is numero uno) and they can grow up to 4 meters (about 13 feet to you yanks…and me).

I’ll be perfectly honest; I had a pretty good feeling of how I’d react if I came across a 13’ snake, even if it’s non-venomous. I’m not your typical snaker-er who would probably roll their eyes at my proclivity to err on the safe side. Throwing caution to the wind around something twice as big as me isn’t my forte.

That being said, the 2^nd largest snake in Australia turned out to be pretty friendly and cute.

Olive python (Liasis olivaceus)

Turns out I’m adept and catching the smallest version of the largest snakes.

Beggars can’t be choosers I suppose.

I even mustered the courage to whip out a quick selfie with the little rascal (no duck lips, maybe next time).

Snake selfie > all other selfies

After a long night of field work I woke up early to head into Darwin and make sure everything in the lab is in order. In true rookie fashion I forgot closed-toed shoes so the lab was off limits forcing me to go into the mall for something cheap.

 Lucky for you I was able to snap a quick pick of the local wildlife.

True NT ozzie stylie

Waaay too short shorts, check.

Flip flops with nasty toe nails, check.

Leather Crocodile Dundee hat, check.

I don’t want to give the impression that everyone in the top-end dresses like this. Nor do I want to come off as too judge-y (too late?). But for some reason, especially as you get farther away from the cities, this is the clear dress of choice.

Real salt of the earth types out here when you get into the country.

The university stuff went well and I’m all set to start my lab tests shortly which is very exciting. There was also a special seminar that brought all my Australian mentors together in one room!

Dr. Keith Christian, Dr. Greg Brown, Dr. Rick Shine (+1)

Keith is an amazing physiologist who has worked on all types of animals and is gracious enough to let me use his lab space while I’m here. Greg has been doing cane toad work around Darwin since they first arrived in this part of the country in the early 2000’s (not to mention the only other snake person in a sea of cane toad researchers up here) And Rick is the top-tier reptile ecologist in all of Australia. I’m pretty sure he is also a machine sent from the future to publish more research papers than humanly possible (I think he’s published 1-2 papers in the 9 days I’ve been here).

We were also able to hear a talk by Peter and Rosemary Grant who have been working on Darwin’s Galapagos finch for 44 years. Their talk was amazing and it was a real privilege to meet them. Plus they’re friendly to boot.

Rosemary and Peter Grant (+1)