Queensland over Xmas 2014 - The Reptiles - Installment 3

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chrish
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Queensland over Xmas 2014 - The Reptiles - Installment 3

Post by chrish »

This is reptile installment three from my Xmas 2014 trip to Queensland.
Installment one on reptiles can be seen here - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22886
Installment two on reptiles can be seen here - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22894

I did already post my amphibians, if you missed it - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22597

Here's my map of the places discussed here and the routes I drove -

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In this installment, I will discuss the reptiles found north of Port Douglas in the rainforests of the Daintree NP and surroundings.

I guess I'll start off with a few habitat shots as best I have them. This area of NE Queensland is famous for having a narrow stretch of very wet forest in an otherwise dry continent. The Daintree National Park sits within this wet rainforest. I recommend you check out the amphibians post to see some of the awesome frogs that occur in this forest.

I find rainforests very hard to capture in photos because no photo really shows what it "looks" like to be there. Here's the best shot I have from a wonderful boardwalk at a place called Jindalba -

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My trips north and south into the Daintree were limited a bit due to the necessity of getting across on the car ferry which had limited hours -

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This river is full of big Saltwater Crocodiles. I wondered exactly what these people were doing standing on the bank like this? I kept watching just in case I got an action shot of a 4 meter croc taking one of them into the water.

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Herping in the forest was pretty slow. Mostly I saw skinks, of course, because this is Australia.

I believe this one is the Rainforest Litter-skink (Lygisaurus laevis) -

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and these were a couple of Yellow-blotched Forest Skinks (Eulamprus tigrinus) -

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I'm not sure which species this little skink is. Maybe Rainforest Litter-skink again? - any help would be appreciated -

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And these are probably some species of Carlia?

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While all these little brown skinks are interesting, if not confusing, my favorite of the forest skinks was seen while I was birding along a boardwalk near Mossman Gorge. I looked over the suspended walkway and spied these three massive Major Skinks (Bellatorias frerei) by their burrow mouth on the forest floor below.
(PS - the names of these Egernia are weird. E. frerei has the common name "Major Skink" while E. major is called the "Land Mullet". While I love the name Land Mullet, the idea that E. major isn't the Major Skink messes with my brain. :crazyeyes: ).
(PPS - I wonder if anyone ever scribbled field notes about the land mullet using the short hand "4#"?....If you get that, you might be bigger music nerd than I am :lol: )

By any common name, these things were "major" skinks; the biggest adult here was well over a foot long!

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Of course, the prize lizard of these coastal forests for many is the Boyd's Forest Dragon (Hypsilurus boydii). These big dragons are restricted to a narrow patch of forest along the coast of NE Australia here. They are shy lizards that rest on tree trunks and apparently scurry around to the other side of the trunk as you approach. I searched for these lizards over and over again, watching carefully as I walked and scanning trunks with binoculars in the distance to no avail. On my third trip to the Jindalba boardwalk (where they are "common"), I finally saw a group of tourists looking at a tree trunk off the trail. I walked over and saw my first Boyd's Forest Dragon.

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I wasn't really very satisfied with this sighting because it had been pointed out to me rather than finding one myself after all the scanning I had done. Fortunately a few minutes later in a different area, I heard something crashing through the leaves on the forest floor towards me and looked over the boardwalk to find my own Forest Dragon. I was surprised how hard this big lizard was to find on the forest floor -

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Fortunately, it climbed up on a tree trunk a few seconds later to stand out better -

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A couple of nights later I was walking the same boardwalk and got a "more typical" photo of one as it slept right next to the trail -

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On the roads that ran through the forest, I did find a few herps as well at night -

This 2-3 meter Scrub Python (Simalia kinghorni) was on the road on a blind curve in the pouring rain, so I only grabbed this "out the window" documentation shot -

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I imagine there were some big ones out there as well because these HUGE snacks were common in the forests at night.
Giant White-tailed Rat (Uromys caudimaculatus) -

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I found a few Brown Treesnakes (Boiga irregularis) on the roads in the forest -

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as well as another OZ treesnake, the Common Treesnake (Dendrelaphis punctulatus) (This species must only come in the DOR morph. That's the only way I find them.)

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But of all the forest reptiles I saw, my favorite was this species. I had searched for this species for 6 days on my first trip to the area and had already made 4 trips to its habitat on this trip and had no success. Finally just a few days before I had to head back to the northern hemisphere, I spotted this Australian Velociraptor (Casuarius casuarius) right next to the boardwalk....but more about that on the appropriate forum.

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Once again, this post has gotten longer than I thought it would, so the (awesome) herping of the canefields in this area will have to wait for installment 4.
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DracoRJC
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Re: Queensland over Xmas 2014 - The Reptiles - Installment 3

Post by DracoRJC »

Cassowary wins.
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Berkeley Boone
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Joined: June 8th, 2010, 4:02 am

Re: Queensland over Xmas 2014 - The Reptiles - Installment 3

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Great series, Chris! I am so jealous of your Major Skinks and the Hypsilurus. Both of those were ones I looked for, but came up empty-handed.

Those folks at the edge of the river are idiots. But I am glad nothing happened to them. That would not be a pleasant way to go.

Great job on the cassowary find! I'll have to go check out the account in the other subforum.

--Berkeley
Eipper
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Joined: April 23rd, 2011, 9:24 pm
Location: Queensland Australia

Re: Queensland over Xmas 2014 - The Reptiles - Installment 3

Post by Eipper »

The Eulamprus is now Concinnia

The brown skink below them is Carlia rubrigularis

The sort of Carlia is Saproscincus basiliscus

Cheers
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