21-22.June.2016 (Day 16-17)

Half way there

First things first. Mission accomplished. 

Site number two has officially been toad-ed!

I won’t lie to you, the drive was a little brutal. Driving almost 2,000 kilometers (~1,200mi) in 48 hours after driving even farther the previous 48 hours was a little exhausting.

The drive (II)

Say it with me now BOAR-ah-Lou-Lah

I ventured out solo on this trip which was a little nerve-raking but neccessary. In addition to the 30 cane toads I need for my project, I was able to grab ~75 toads for some other researchers who weren’t feeling up to the drive out there (wimps).

Oh yeah, and I got all the numbers I needed in about 30 minutes. Boom.

When it rains it pours.

I officially have two of four toad sites collected and I’m half way through with field work (the cane toad portion at least). Double Boom.

A lot of the ‘highways’ in Australia are one lane. And I don’t mean one lane in either direction, I mean one lane total. When semis come in the opposite direction (they’re called ‘road trains’, a semi attached to 3-4 huuuge trailers), goal number one is pulling off the side of the road as far as possible and trying to avoid the inevitable dust cloud that follows them.

The roads often look like they go on forever.

Long roads and lonely drives

As before, I didn’t camp out and try explain to people why I was cutting open a bunch of cane toads and taking their blood. Instead, I stayed at possibly the most awesome hotel ever. So awesome in fact, that no known word can aptly describe its quirky majesty. 

I shall deem it ratchin (rad + bitchin ???, I’m still working on that one....)

It was called the heartbreak hotel (thank god the rooms weren’t themed, awkward)  and I can’t really describe the confused look on the faces of the front desk staff when I told them I was checking in solo (sure ‘bout that, mate?)

Themed bathrooms of course

I think the look on their faces would have been even better if they’d walked in to find my mobile cane toad collection lab set-up on top of the mini fridge in the corner of the room.

MORS (Mobile Ozzie Research Station)

By far the most science-y feeling activity I get to do is store my samples in a mobile deep freeze. The little particles in cane toad blood that I’m interested in are somewhat sensitive so it’s important I get them on ice so I can store them until I’m ready to run my immune function tests. Normally at ASU I put the samples directly into a -80C (-112F) freezer. Since I don’t have a giant mobile freezer, a tank of liquid nitrogen will have to do (-210C [-346F], yeah, that’ll work).

Warts be gone

I couldn’t help myself using this bad boy. Maybe it’s not as memorable to you, but Jurassic Park was a big deal to me when I was a kid and using this liquid nitrogen reminds me of Newman stealing the dino embryos in the movie.

Naturally I imagine myself storing Velociraptor DNA…

I don’t know if I was just lucky this trip or if I was in a better mood and had my eyes more alert, but I found a snake I’ve really been hoping to see too!

 Apologies for the terrible picture, but this thing was really moving once I got out of the car. Why would I want to see a boring brown snake? This is actually one of the biggies in Australia. From everything I’d heard about Australia before coming here, it sounded like there are deadly snakes, spiders, sharks, and crocodiles around every corner but I’ve been looking for over 2 weeks and this is the first one I’ve seen.

Western brown snake (Pseudonaja nuchalis)

This is an elapid snake, so it has hollow fangs used to inject venom (King Cobras are also elapids). Like the animals I work with in the US, these snakes are pretty venomous, unlike the  rattlesnakes though, elapids are skittish and really quick.

It has an aboriginal name called gwardar which means ‘go a looong way around’. It’s venom isn’t necessarily the worst, but they’re known to deliver a lot which makes them very very gwardar. I can't emphasize how quick they are. After opening the car door for a pic it darted off into the bushes (and I was not about to go chasing it).

And it wouldn’t be a road trip without getting into the habitat of yet another type of kangaroo/wallaby/etc.

Antilopine wallaroo (Macropus antilopinus)

This is the third largest kangaroo in Australia and they live up to the ‘antelope’ in their name. In a 30 minute stretch I had close calls with 4-5 of these bad boys. If I were driving any faster than 20mph I could easily imagine one jumping right through the windshield!

Wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax)

These are awesome birds of prey, and the emblem of the Northern Territory. Their wing-span can push 2 meters (~6 feet) and they’ve been recorded flying over a mile in the air! My favorite fact about these birds is that they’re known to attack para-gliders who wander into their territory. Definitely not a bird to mess with.

The drive there and back got pretty monotonous at times but a predominant feature of the landscape are large dirt towers scattered haphazardly throughout the bush.

Cathedral termite (Nasutitermes triodiae)

These minarets are home to grass eating termites that make their home in most open locations. More than once I spotted a large mound using some pretty ingenious strategies, presumably to get a little more support.

Clever termites

Termites are social like ants but are pretty distantly related. Inside each mound is a colony made up of workers, soldiers, and reproductive termites with wings. They all work together to build these complex and well-insulated nests (that are perfect at protecting the colony from fire damage too). These insects are incredibly tiny but can build mounds that are gigantic!

Shameless Selfie #4,783

In addition to all the animals along the drive, it wouldn’t be a NT road trip without a hell-scape, end-of-the-world bush fire casually burning on the side of the highway.

Shouldn’t I call somebody about this?