# Past few weeks



## waruikazi (Jun 19, 2011)

I've been a little lazy the past few weeks with my herping rounds. So here we go, catching up for lost time and i got myself a new camera that i've been playing around with.

I'm beginning to get pretty bored with snakes, i'll start with a few skinks i've found recently, and i've finally worked out the macro function on my camera so i can take pics now.

_Morethia storri_







Pretty sure this is _Ctenotus vertebralis_






_Carlia amax_






Geckoes

I think this is _Gehyra nana_

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_Heteronotia planiceps _these things are tiny!






Slatey grey, disapeared before we could get at it.






BHP






Childrens, this one was road kill. Was good timing too, i was looking for one to put into my freezer collection.






And this was another fella that i felt like taking pictures of.











Olive, this fella was about 2.4m. This particular spot is crawling with them.






Here's some of the other things you find out here when you're herping. We've also found burial sites out here but out of respect we haven't taken any pictures. Most of these rocky outcrops have human remains and art scattered through them.






And a few landscape pictures. This shot pretty well shows the majority of the area i explore.











And this is what happens when you take your eyes off your dog so you can take a pic of a tiny little skink. It took me 3 hours to find him, even with a tracking collar. He found himself a mile (literally, the GPS told me so when it finally picked up his signal) up a gorge ontop of a cliff that he couldn't get down from. He was pretty happy to see me by the end lol.






I've found plenty more than this over the last month that either my mate took photos of or didn't bother. I'll try and get those pics up soon too.


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## lizardloco (Jun 19, 2011)

Cool, you're very lucky up there!


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## snakes_666 (Jun 19, 2011)

pretty cool pics


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## pythonmum (Jun 19, 2011)

Great stuff! I can't wait - leave for my NT trip on 7 July. I have never been to the NT and am really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I only have a crummy little SureShot, so no fantastic photos from me.


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## richoman_3 (Jun 19, 2011)

wow!
awesome photos and finds!


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## waruikazi (Jun 19, 2011)

Yeah i am pretty lucky really well lucky when it comes to wildlife lol. I really need to pull my finger out and start looking for things properly and taking some pictures.


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## GeckPhotographer (Jun 19, 2011)

That landscape shot makes me jealous, the animals you find in it too, but mostly just where it is. Beautiful place to go herping. Oh yeah nice Olive pic too.


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## waruikazi (Jun 19, 2011)

Mines just a little point and squirt too, i decided to by a water and shock proof cam rather than spending big on something that i know i'm going to break.

Where are you headed for your trip?



pythonmum said:


> Great stuff! I can't wait - leave for my NT trip on 7 July. I have never been to the NT and am really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I only have a crummy little SureShot, so no fantastic photos from me.


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## Torah (Jun 19, 2011)

hold up ..................... whats a freezer collection ???


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## GeckPhotographer (Jun 19, 2011)

Might I inquire how often you see Chameleon Dragons (_Chelosania brunnea). _I saw one in 2008 when I was lucky enough to be up in the North WA and NT, which I did not get any good photos off. (It was pretty beat up, was on a road had half its tail missing, not full grown). But which I thought was a really cool animal and wanted to see and photograph some more, yet I am aware they are supposedly highly cryptic and rare.


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## waruikazi (Jun 19, 2011)

Torah said:


> hold up ..................... whats a freezer collection ???



That's where you keep all of your dead stuff before you send it to the museum, science class, cut it up or stick in a jar of metho.


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## snakeluvver (Jun 19, 2011)

Jeez I wish I was bored of seeing snakes, I've only seen 4.


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## GeckPhotographer (Jun 19, 2011)

> Jeez I wish I was bored of seeing snakes



That is a paradox, if you wished that then you would be bored of seeing snakes, if you were bored of seeing snakes you would not wish that..... loop. Unless you wish you were bored of seeing them because not being bored of seeing them is causing adverse effects to something....


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## waruikazi (Jun 19, 2011)

I've never seen one mate, the only dragons i see with any regularity are frillies and _Ctenophorus caudocinctus_ (and i'm not entirely convinced they are actually _caudocintus_). I do most of my herping either on the roads or in the escarpment looking for the endemic species, that habitat doesn't really match what the chameleon dragons like. 



GeckPhotographer said:


> Might I inquire how often you see Chameleon Dragons (_Chelosania brunnea). _I saw one in 2008 when I was lucky enough to be up in the North WA and NT, which I did not get any good photos off. (It was pretty beat up, was on a road had half its tail missing, not full grown). But which I thought was a really cool animal and wanted to see and photograph some more, yet I am aware they are supposedly highly cryptic and rare.


 


snakeluvver said:


> Jeez I wish I was bored of seeing snakes, I've only seen 4.


 

Hahaha, i suppose it is a good problem to have , what i try to do now is to find them in creative ways. Like find them in places they aren't meant to be, or while they are hunting etc etc. When you do that you start to find new species and interesting little things about them. Like that Mcleays water snakes have red bellies out here and keelbacks hunt frogs in the evening but hunt for fish and tadpoles in the morning and _Furina ornata_s eat skinks almost as big as them.


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## GeckPhotographer (Jun 19, 2011)

> I've never seen one mate, the only dragons i see with any regularity are frillies and _Ctenophorus caudocinctus_ (and i'm not entirely convinced they are actually _caudocintus_). I do most of my herping either on the roads or in the escarpment looking for the endemic species, that habitat doesn't really match what the chameleon dragons like.



Hmm ok, when I was up there in the normal touristy part of Kakadu I saw bucket loads of _Amphibolurus_, _Diporiphora bilineata _and maybe one _D. magna_. 
Didn't see any Frillies though so I guess it depends where you are looking.


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## imported_Varanus (Jun 19, 2011)

Lucky bugger! Nice Olive and rock art. Goannas were obviously an important part of the diet pre Cane Toads. Any ideas on how old the art is? Any V.Glauerti or Glebopalma by any chance?!


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## waruikazi (Jun 19, 2011)

There are still some goannas around. You still find a few mertens (called burarr by the locals), i've seen one panoptes (galawan) on our floodplains and one that may have been gouldii not too far away in Kakadu along with a few hatchies at different times. I've seen some small goannas in the scrub near the escarpment but they were way too quick for an ID.

Here's the mertens and a pic of where i found him.










Never seen a gleb and interestingly the glauerts out here, according to the herpers i've talked to and Varanoid Lizards of the World, are not glauerts. They don't even live in the escarpment. 

Here's another interesting tid bit that i got from a conversation/argument with Gavin Bedford. I was arguing with him that there were still a few panoptes around even though the toads have come through. He disagreed so i told him that i saw four in five minutes one day on the South Alligator floodplain. Then he said that none of them would have been more than 80cm, and he was right. Then he went on to tell me that the SA floodplain panoptes are different to other populations and he suspects they aren't panoptes at all!

The art is pretty timeless hey, they don't do it anymore but the local clans would go and fix up the old art as it was deteriorating in the old days. So i guess it would be pretty hard to get a good idea of the ages. But in the rocks where i took those photos there are pictures of what look like tasmanian tigers and in other locations there are pictures of other long extinct animals that went extinct 40-50 thousand years ago! Also i didn't really try to show it in the pictures i took, but you'll notice the animals are in peices and cut up. The pictures are like an instruction manual on the best ways to cook and share out the different animals.

Here's the tiger looking pic...


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## pythonmum (Jun 19, 2011)

That is so cool - I can't wait! I'm going on a 4WD tour starting on the 8th. Staying in Litchfield on the 8th (Florence Falls, Wangi Falls, Marrakai floodplains), cruising Corroboree billabong on the 9th and going to Bowali visitor Ctr, Ubirr rock and Barramundi Gorge, then on the 10th to Twin falls gorge and Jim Jim falls before returning to Darwin in the evening. On the 11th, 12th and 13th I'm at a conference in Darwin. I've signed up for both events at Crocodyluns Park on Tuesday 12th - a breakfast there and an afternoon tour. I think I will probably lash out and spend an obcene amount of money on a prepared croc skull, too. I've always wanted one. If you are in Darwin during that time, Gordo, I'll shout you a drink. I'm on the school's bill, so not many expenses of my own except the 4WD tour and croc skull


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## waruikazi (Jun 19, 2011)

I'm on school hols then, not sure if i'll be in town or out here. Ubirr is only 15 min from my house, has some pretty flash art up there too, so let us know when you're up and free cause either way if you're in Darwin or Kakadu you'll be in my beighbourhood. Not sure who with or how, but you can do tours up the hill (Injaluk) where i took the pics of the art and stuff.


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## imported_Varanus (Jun 19, 2011)

That's interesting regarding the Glauerts, I've heard that Sam Sweet carried out an extensive study of the area (though not sure of the exact location) and found local Glauerti populations to inhabit trees rather than rocky escarpments?! 

Fantastic art shots, again, thanks for sharing. Those stick men remind me of the "Bradshaw" figures from the Kimberley! Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a Thylacine portrait near Ubirr? That should date to at least 3000 years ago! Imagine how old the underlying art must be!!


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## SteveNT (Jun 19, 2011)

Thylacines are common in Arnhem Land art sites. Death Adder Gorge (Kakadu) has some really speccy mega fauna galleries but it is closed these days.

You can arrange tours of Injaluk Hill through Injaluk Art Centre.


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## Torah (Jun 19, 2011)

waruikazi said:


> That's where you keep all of your dead stuff before you send it to the museum, science class, cut it up or stick in a jar of metho.


 
I think im missing something , can you explain that a little more please, plus y ??


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## Snakeluvver2 (Jun 19, 2011)

Dead stuff = freezer untill it's sent to the museum, science class, dissected or preserved.
Why? Why not? Finding odd stuff out of ranges, seeing what they are eating, what it died from, what can be learnt from animals dosent stop when they are dead.


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## waruikazi (Jun 20, 2011)

imported_Varanus said:


> That's interesting regarding the Glauerts, I've heard that Sam Sweet carried out an extensive study of the area (though not sure of the exact location) and found local Glauerti populations to inhabit trees rather than rocky escarpments?!
> 
> Fantastic art shots, again, thanks for sharing. Those stick men remind me of the "Bradshaw" figures from the Kimberley! Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a Thylacine portrait near Ubirr? That should date to at least 3000 years ago! Imagine how old the underlying art must be!!



And that should be the first hint that they aren't glauerts! I read most of what i know from Varanoid Lizards of the World, from what was said in there i thought they were going to be an undescribed species but i've heard from a few herpers that they are just a scalaris or scalaris type of monitor. There is only one Arnhem 'glauert' in museum collections which is apparently in pretty poor shape but at school we have two of what i identified as scalaris in glass jars collected by Brian Jukes in 1974. 

Like steve said there are other art sites that show long extinct animals. There is a site in Kakadu that has pictures resembling Demon Ducks, which went extinct in the pleistocene. That's 40 000 years ago!



SteveNT said:


> Thylacines are common in Arnhem Land art sites. Death Adder Gorge (Kakadu) has some really speccy mega fauna galleries but it is closed these days.
> 
> You can arrange tours of Injaluk Hill through Injaluk Art Centre.



Pretty sure the Injaluk centre tours don't organise permits. Pretty sure people outside of Arnehm need to organise a tour through a guide like the Arnhem Lander or Lords.


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## Snake Catcher Victoria (Jun 20, 2011)

i cant wait till you are taking macro shots of the critters in your area Gordo, 
you really are very lucky.


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## waruikazi (Jun 20, 2011)

Torah said:


> I think im missing something , can you explain that a little more please, plus y ??



At school we sometimes use the animals for disection for the kids to learn about them. The NT Museum also asked me once to collect R/K for them, i've never given them anything yet but they did ask once. It's kinda fun too, if i find something dead that has an obvious bump in its belly i'll cut it open to see what is in there, that's how i know that a Furina ornata can eat things as big as it. That's also how we know that NT taipans will prey on cane toads and an amateur cutting up a DOR eatern brown is how we found out pygmy blue tongues are not extinct. 

Technically illegal though.



ssssnakeman said:


> i cant wait till you are taking macro shots of the critters in your area Gordo,
> you really are very lucky.


 
Tell you what though Baz for those 5 or 6 months when the rivers up and you can only drive about 2km either side of the community, you really don't feel that lucky! Lucky i'm not just out here for the animals, it would be an awful lot give up just for a few photos!

But Baz they were all taken with the macro function! Here's a zoomy pic...


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## Wally (Jun 20, 2011)

Gordo,

Nice photos, especially the rock art. Certainly beats the graffiti I wake up to everyday. Does that collar tell you the overall distance your dog has traveled? Nice to see he's made a recovery from his ill timed leap out the window.


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## GeckPhotographer (Jun 20, 2011)

Cutting up dead on road stuff is a long and well represented trait of field herpers the road over. It does not even need to be herps, or on a road. If its dead it's a chance to research, it is technically illegal though as said. 

That point about the pygmy blue tongue, I was always under the impression from speaking to people close to the issue that it was not an amateur but someone quite versed in field herping that made that find, simply that they were not looking for the pygmy blue tongue when they cut open the snake. However I have never heard the name of the person mentioned as I say it was just an impression from how they talked about it. 

Out of curiosity did the museum ask you to collect road kill for them and ask you to get a permit to do it on permit? Or were they doing the territory thing and using common sense?


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## waruikazi (Jun 20, 2011)

Wally76 said:


> Gordo,
> 
> Nice photos, especially the rock art. Certainly beats the graffiti I wake up to everyday. Does that collar tell you the overall distance your dog has traveled? Nice to see he's made a recovery from his ill timed leap out the window.


 
Not unless it keeps a constant signal on him, which it didn't. Yeah he's pretty well back to himslef now, maybe 95% of what he was. Still dumb enought to get himself into trouble with pigs, buffalo and other such creatures in the bush.



GeckPhotographer said:


> Cutting up dead on road stuff is a long and well represented trait of field herpers the road over. It does not even need to be herps, or on a road. If its dead it's a chance to research, it is technically illegal though as said.
> 
> That point about the pygmy blue tongue, I was always under the impression from speaking to people close to the issue that it was not an amateur but someone quite versed in field herping that made that find, simply that they were not looking for the pygmy blue tongue when they cut open the snake. However I have never heard the name of the person mentioned as I say it was just an impression from how they talked about it.
> 
> Out of curiosity did the museum ask you to collect road kill for them and ask you to get a permit to do it on permit? Or were they doing the territory thing and using common sense?



I'm just assuming it was an amateur cause that is what i heard, but there are lots of different levels of amateurs. I don't know who it actually was either. I like to think the museum wouldn't ask me to do anything illegal lol, lots of people donate interesting dead stuff to the museum and they never get into trouble, i'm sure it would be the same as me.


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## Wally (Jun 20, 2011)

Thanks.


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## GeckPhotographer (Jun 20, 2011)

Ok, apparently the re-discoverer of the pygmy blue tongue was Grahaeme Armstrong. Who is not totally an amateur, they have had plenty of experience with reptiles over their time but perhaps not quite an expert in the field either. I doubt the museum really minds people collecting dead stuff if it comes to them but I guess they would not really ask for you to behave illegally.


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## Renenet (Jun 20, 2011)

Nice photos. That olive looks fat, healthy and peeved.


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## $NaKe PiMp (Jun 20, 2011)

what an awesome place im going to have to get up that way,maybe even to live


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## Boidae (Jun 21, 2011)

Awesome pics mate, that Olive's a beast!


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## SnakeNBake (Jun 21, 2011)

Awesome pics, I would love to spend some time up there, what a place! Though Im still enjoying exploring Queensland.


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## tropicbreeze (Jul 19, 2011)

imported_Varanus said:


> That's interesting regarding the Glauerts, I've heard that Sam Sweet carried out an extensive study of the area (though not sure of the exact location) and found local Glauerti populations to inhabit trees rather than rocky escarpments?!



Sam Sweet did a lot of his work around the old Baroalba airstrip. It's mainly woodland habitat.


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## eipper (Jul 20, 2011)

Pseudethedactylus are really easy up there Matt

Cheers,
scott


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## waruikazi (Jul 20, 2011)

-Matt- said:


> Gordo, do you see many _A. praelongus_ in the area? Also have you ever managed to see _Pseudothecodactylus lindneri?
> _



I haven't seen any death adders out here, not even slide marks but i have found them closer to darwin recently. 

No geckoes, i don't get into the escarpment at night unless i go into Kakadu, the locals don't like it and it's kinda spooky lol.


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## waruikazi (Jul 21, 2011)

-Matt- said:


> Thanks, I was surprised at how easy adders were to find in the escarpment area in the eastern side of Kakadu. It's a great part of the world...you are very lucky to live there!



They are one snake i've never found while looking for them, how did you manage to find them?


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## tropicbreeze (Jul 21, 2011)

-Matt- said:


> Thanks, I was surprised at how easy adders were to find in the escarpment area in the eastern side of Kakadu. It's a great part of the world...you are very lucky to live there!



Adders were always fairly common around the Cahills Crossing area of the East Alligator. Also around the South Alligator flood plains and the south western area of Kakadu. Cane toads may have thinned them out a bit now but I did get a photo of one in the south western area of the Park a few months ago.


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