11.July.2016 (Day 36)

A lack of focus wins out in the end

I love to put pictures up of the animals I see and describe some of the cool things about them. 

But I don’t want to fool you in any way. 

At least 50% of the critters I actively search for remain elusive. Of the ones I do see, at least half the pictures turn out to be junk.

Today, for example, I headed on a little road trip based on some tips from a friend-of-a-friend who lives in the area. He pointed me in the direction where I could search for a very specific snake (Amethystine python), which I didn’t find.

And then I quickly became obsessed searching for an even more elusive animal (Platypus) which I also didn't find.

Classic skunking, sort of.

I’m very hesitant to tell people I’m a herpetologist (reptile and amphibian expert) because a) I’m not actually very good at spotting them, b) I’m afraid of getting pigeon-holed as a ‘herp-guy’, and c) I get far too distracted with all manner of living creatures to ever just be on the look-out for snakes and amphibians.

Its days like today that work in my favor and I truly value the education/training I’ve received. Most aspects of the natural world can grab my attention and when the animals I’m really hoping to see aren’t out, it’s comforting to know I can still marvel at the Australian landscape (although I still really really really want to see a Platypus).

Red-throated rainbow skink (Carlia rubrigularis)

Most of the lizards I see every day are skinks. And most of them look exactly alike! Fortunately today I was up in an area called the Atherton tablelands which has a very useful online skink guide (the truly is something on the internet for everyone). I can honestly say today was the first time I was able to correctly identify one of these little buggers (and x2 no less).

Australian bush-turkey (Alectura lathami)

Easily one of the ugliest darn birds I ever did see. Not actually related to the delicious turkeys consumed en masse every November. These birds love to squabble through the leaf litter confusing curious biologists into thinking something far more interesting is wandering about.

Black jezebel (Delias nigrina)

If I were only looking for snakes and egg laying mammals (which were admittedly first on my radar) I never would have noticed these beautiful butterflies. I didn’t try one myself, but the bright colors are there to warn would-be predators (I assume birds) not to eat them because of their rotten taste.

Eastern water skink (Eulamprus quoyii)

As I said before, another skink for the record books! Woo hoo, I’m 2 for, errr, 100 (?). If this hadn’t been basically sitting in the water I never would of gotten anywhere with a google search: “Far north Queensland AND skink AND yellow stripes AND mottled belly AND wtf is it?!?”


With so many skinks running around in the leaf litter, I was overly hopeful of seeing the python I'd driven out for. There certainly was plenty of food running around for them...

Musky rat kangaroo (Hypsiprymnodon moschatus)

This picture is, once again, dedicated to my wife Kelly, a true blue rodentophile! This is not actually a rat though - it's the worlds smallest member of the macropod (kangaroo) family.

Bull kauri (Agathis microstachya)

These trees are look like they stood the same time as the dinosaurs. In fact, during the Mesozoic era (250-65 million years ago), relatives of the kauri dominated the warm and moist landscape.  The two in the photo are a pretty famous pair (famous as far as trees go I suppose), they’re 50 meters (160ft) tall, and 2.8 meters (9ft) in diameter!




The area that I'd been pointed to is called Lake Barrine. And wouldn't you know it, I finally found a fresh body of water without salties in it...and it was freezing. Still pretty good to look at though.

Lake Barrine, Queensland 

There was plenty to see around, on-top of, and inside the water too.

Long-finned eel (Anguilla reinhardtii)

The life-cycle of these animals are amazing (not the best photo, but like I said, that water was freeeezing). Baby eels are born in the ocean and swim up river where they eventually have to crawl, on land, ~700 meters to reach the lake. They live here, eating mostly other fish, for 15 years or so before they cross the land again to swim back to the ocean, lay eggs, and die.

Saw-shelled turtle (Myuchelys latisternum)

Normally this is the part of the blog where I would start to lament how, yet again, I'd found an absolutely minuscule example of a large animal. In this case though? These two are pretty darn cute. This is another rare example of an Australian animal that can eat cane toads too, so kuddos to them.

Green fig (Ficus virens)

Another amazing tree (plus their fruit is delicious), in that they start out as a seed only a few millimeters long (about the size of a sesame seed) and after ~500 years turn into this massive behemoth. The crown of this particular tree (the cathedral fig) is 2000 square meters…that’s about the size of two Olympic swimming pools. The leaves alone weigh 1000 kg (~2200 lbs) which is the same as a small car (or ten of me if you wanna be a jerk about it).

Red-bellied black snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus)

Another elapid for the adventure books. While not as dangerous as some of the other Australian elapids, I would still avoid a bite from one at all costs. Their venom is a mixture of myotoxin (destroys muscle), neurotoxin (destroys nerves), and hemolytic (destroys red blood cells) proteins. Luckily for this biologist, they’re not particularly aggressive and I wasn’t too worried to lean in for a close-up (most of the other ‘famous’ Australian elapids I would not get so close to).




One last thing I forgot to mention. There's no poison oak here and there are no ticks (two of my least favorite things ever!...behind Vegemite). There are however.



Lurking in every damp pile of leaves.




Waiting for any unfortunate doofus.



Leeches!

Jawed leech (Gnatbobdellida libbata)

Finally my gift/curse of finding small examples of animals has really paid of (aside from th cute baby turtles of course). These blood suckers can get up to 20cm (~8in) long!!! Their bodies are covered with receptors that can detect endotherms (produce their own body heat) by sight, smell, vibration, temperature, and they can even detect elevated CO2 levels. They release an anesthetic into the skin so you can't feel them bite and they also have something called hirudin that they release as an anti-coagulant.

This sucker (my dad jokes are getting really bad) found a nice cozy home behind my band-aid for who knows how long. Luckily their anesthetic makes it pain-free to pull right off, however the hirudin on my not-quite-but-almost healed foot wound really let it flow.




Most things in Australia aren't nearly as terrifying as I expected.


Leeches? No thanks.