# Wet Tropics and Townsville Area Herps



## StephenZozaya (Feb 1, 2010)

I recently joined Gus up north to the Tully area to assist him with his masters project, which involves tracking the endangered rainforest frog _Litoria rheocola_. His site was near Mena Creek in a patch of secondary rainforest. I first spent time at the site in August 2008 while assisting another friend who was doing similar work. Here are a few photos from that trip.






Red-bellied black snake _Pseudechis porphyriacus_









Papuan Frogmouh _Podargus papuensis_





Australian water dragon _Physignathus lesueurii_





A rather dull looking white-lipped treefrog _Litoria infrafrenata_






Now for the recent stuff!

The original plan was to head up on the 9th of January and stay until the 22nd. However, we were inconvenienced the first night due to very heavy rains. Access to the site had become impossible as the creek we had to cross had become quite the torrent. So since no actual work could be done we decided to head to Tully Gorge to look for scrub pythons. We were successful.

Scub Python _Morelia kinghorni_





Another individual found a bit north of Tully.





And another found near Mena Creek





While driving back from Tully we also came across this jungle carpet python _Morelia spilota cheynei_









And another individual found the following week near Murray Falls.






Because of the rain there were literally thousands of frogs (alive and dead) out on the roads near Tully. The majority of them were _Litoria gracilenta_ and_ L. fallax_ but there were also a few _L. nasuta_ and _L. infrafrenata_ amongst them. We stopped at the campgrounds near Tully Gorge to photograph some frogs.

Northern orange-eyed treefrog _Litoria xanthomera_













Graceful treefrog _Litoria gracilenta_









The following day we decided to make a short trip to Mission Beach. We planned on a hike but that plan was scrapped when a local gave Gus and I an injured gravid olive sea snake _Aipysurus laevis_. You can see an earlier post of Gus' regarding this snake from a few weeks back.





We decided that to drive back to Townsville and drop the snake off at Reef HQ for possible rehabilitation. Before doing so we decided to spend a few minutes on the beach looking for skinks.

_Cryptoblepharus litoralis_ were abundant on beach-side rocks.





The next two days were spent in Townsville waiting for the rain up north to clear up. I joined my friend Kris to the Townsville Town Common for a night of herping. We were there mainly to find keelback snakes for Kris' research, but we also saw a burton's legless lizard (_Lialis burtonis_) as well as a few frogs and this water python _Liasis mackloti_.





A very small keelback snake _Tropidonophis mairii_.





Green-striped frog _Cyclorana alboguttata_.





The time came to head back north to the Tully area. Before leaving Townsville we had to stop and release this beautiful eastern carpet python (_Morelia spilota mcdowelli_) which Gus had caught out on a snake call.





We were greeted by sunshine as we arrived north. The week turned out very well as it only rained a little, mainly in the early morning. This is pretty uncharacteristic of the area. It made the working conditions far more comfortable than when I spent a week at this site in 2008.

Just a few days into the trip, while walking along one of the transects at night, we came across a very interesting turtle. All we had ever seen at the site before this were saw-shelled turtles (_Elseya lasisternum_), which this animal definitely wasn't. We keyed the turtle out and were surprised to discover that it was a northern snapping turtle (_Elseya dentata_). Neither Gus nor myself had any idea that this species occurred in the Tully-Innisfail area. We didn't see any other individuals of this species, just more of the usual saw-shells.





There were heaps of frogs along the transect. Easily the most common frog along the creeks is the mistfrog _Litoria rheocola_. _L. rheocola_ is endemic to the Australian Wet Tropics and has disappeared from nearly all mid to high altitude areas due to the spread of chytrid fungus. Gus' research deals primarily with this species.









This is one of the few females that we found and the only one that we tagged for tracking. She was full of eggs.









Australian lace-lid frogs (Litoria (Nyctimystes) dayi) are another endemic frog which has been hit hard by chytrid fungus. Luckily they were fairly common at the site.

















_Rana daemeli_ are Australia's one and only representative of the family Ranidae.





The white-lipped treefrog (_Litoria infrafrenata_) is a large and beautiful frog endemic to the Wet Tropics bioregion.





Baby water dragons (_Physignathus lesueurii_) were commonly encountered sleeping on vegetation and rocks overhanging the water.













Another another animal found sleeping. Azure kingfisher _Alcedo azurea_.





On the way back to Townsville we decided to stop in Cardwell in order to look for death adders in the area. Unfortunately, we did not find any adders. We did, however, come across a single spotted python _Antaresia maculosa_.









We stopped again near Jourama Falls. Once again no adders. This time we saw a few zigzag geckos (_Oedura rhombifer_) on some large boulders near the falls.









Cheers
Stephen


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## Snakeluvver2 (Feb 1, 2010)

god i wold love to come with you guys


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## Kitah (Feb 1, 2010)

Wow, great photos and I love the descriptions! Might have to try and get out a bit before uni starts. I really have to go to the town common, particularly after all this rain- should hopefully be able to get some good shots of the waterbirds as well.


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## whcasual79 (Feb 1, 2010)

great photos mate ... i was born in tully, after looking at these pics, i think i should move back there


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## Serpentes (Feb 1, 2010)

Thanks for sharing, they're great shots. That second carpet is unusually beautiful. I really miss living up north, your pics help ease the pain


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## amy5189 (Feb 1, 2010)

wow!!! they are great shots and that coastal carpet was gorgeous!


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## krusty (Feb 1, 2010)

great pics.love the ones of the scrubby.looks like you had a great time.i love herping up around townsville
can't wait to get back up there.


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## Bretsta (Feb 1, 2010)

That's awesome mate. great work


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## Bax155 (Feb 2, 2010)

Thanx for sharing these great photos, thread of the week!!


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