# Tropical Queensland, Cape Hillsborough Area



## moloch05 (Dec 11, 2009)

*Cape Hillsborough*


Gus and I headed south from Paluma to the Mackay region in central coastal Queensland. This region is home to four species of _Phyllurus_ that all have tiny distributions. We decided to spend the night at Cape Hillsborough NP due to its close proximity to the home of _Phyllurus isis_ and _Phyllurus ossa_. Cape Hillsborough is a beautiful area. It is also unusual since Hoop Pine grows down to the beach. Normally, I only see these southern conifers in damp areas high up in the mountains. The trees often form an overstorey over the rocks where the _Phyllurus_ live.

























Cape Hillsborough is mostly covered by dry eucalyptus forest with many grass trees in the understorey. It also has sheltered areas that remain damp and support rainforest.






These two mountains, Mt. Blackwood (left) and Mt. Jukes (right), represent the entire known range of _Phyllurus isis_. We climbed one of the mountains at night but had no success with the gecko. We did find sheets of rock with crevices along the road but could not find damp creek beds within rainforest, the habitat that seems particularly attractive to _Phyllurus_. 







We did encounter a few Lemon-barred forest-skinks (_Eulamprus amplus_) asleep on the rocks at night.











In the day, these barred skinks were abundant on rocks in the hills around Cape Hillsborough. _Eulamprus_ is a difficult genus and can be hard to identify in the field. Four species of barred _Eulamprus_ are possible at Cape Hillsborough so I am not certain of the identity. 












Blue-throated Rainbow Skinks (_Carlia rhomboidalis_) were common and in their nuptial colours. Some of these were really beautiful lizards.












This area was good for Major's Skinks (_Bellatorias frerei_). These skinks were less wary than usual so it was possible to take better photos of the animals.













At night, we found this very nice but mortally injured Carpet Python (_Morelia spilota_) on the road.













A huge flock of Red-tailed Black Cockatoos moved through the area. Here is part of the flock over the Hoop Pines.













Cape Hillsborough is good for butterflies. I saw many species and was able to photograph a few.
1. Black-and-White Tiger, female laying eggs
2. Austrlian Leaf Butterfly -- these are really hard to see when they land on dry leaves.
3. Capaneus Swallowtail
4. Eastern Brown Crow. These butterflies have iridescent purple in their wings.
5. One of the Grass Yellows.





















This young Blue-faced Honeyeater was sunning up in a treetop. It looks quite ugly here but they have a bright blue face when they mature. I will have photos of adults in my Cape York post.














*Mt. Ossa Area*

We also visited the small hills of the Mt. Ossa area. These hills are covered with rainforest. We decided to walk up a creek bed to try to reach higher and damper forest. As usual, we had to do a great deal of rock hopping and occasionally climb around boulders or small waterfalls.











We finally reached an area that looked promising. This area had large boulders with cracks.











We were successful and with lots of searching, found 3 of our targets. Two of these had original tails and one had a regenerated tail. These geckos were wary and would run when exposed to light. These seemed to have longer legs than other species.
Mt. Ossa Broad-tailed Gecko (_Phyllurus ossa_)
































Lemon-barred Forest-Skinks (_Eulamprus amplus_) were often seen asleep on the sides of boulders.






This Brown Tree Snake (_Boiga irregularis_) gave us a real fright. We heard a mammal crashing through the brush on the opposite side of the creek. We watched that area as we stepped forward. When we looked down, we saw this snake about a meter from our legs. It had reared and was ready to strike. Taipan flashed through my mind but then we realized that it was just a tree snake.






This Wompoo (a.k.a., Magnificent Fruit Dove) appeared to have crashed into a sheer wall of rock. Its body was lying beneath the rock but otherwise did not show damage. We heard the "wallock-a-woo" calls of the birds often in the late afternoon when we climbed the gully.






This longicorn (Cerambycid) was huge and colourful.






These Capaneus Swallowtails are some of the few Aussie Swallowtails with swallowtails.











Evening Brown







Regards,
David


----------



## greeny1 (Dec 11, 2009)

very nice. looks like you had a good time!


----------



## SCam (Dec 11, 2009)

looks like ya had an amazing trip..awesome pics


----------



## Asharee133 (Dec 11, 2009)

HAHA stupid dove


----------



## moloch05 (Dec 12, 2009)

Here are a few more pics of the leaf-tail. I don't think that there have been many pics of it on the various herp forums.

















Regards,
David


----------



## Rainbow-Serpent (Dec 12, 2009)

Awesome photos man!!


----------



## monkeyboy (Dec 12, 2009)

Wicked photos David. I gotta get a life.
If you dont mind me askin, what sort of camera/lens do you use, and how close to the subject do you have to be to get those type of results? 

Respect,
Steve


----------



## richoman_3 (Dec 12, 2009)

cool that looks great ! nice pics


----------



## moloch05 (Dec 12, 2009)

Thanks, all.

Steve, I use a Canon 40D with a 480EX external flash and either a Canon 100mm macro or a Tamron 18x250mm zoom lens.

Regards,
David


----------



## moloch05 (Dec 13, 2009)

The walk at Mt. Ossa was memorable in more ways than one. When Gus and I were making our way out of the gully, we had to make descend a small waterfall. Gus, being young, agile and superfit simply scrambled down the tiny ledges. These worried me so I decided to climb up and around the rock ledge. While descending the slope, I had to force my way through thickets with lots of vines. It was not easy to see since there was so much reflextion of small vines and twigs from my headlamp. Suddenly, I felt intense pain in my legs, arms and side. When I looked where I was, I realized that I had just passed though a young stinging tree. The pain that night was intense and I only slept for a couple of hours. It took about 12 hours before the pain subsided to a tolerable level. Even now, nearly three weeks later, I still have a dull burning itch from the silica hairs that are embedded in my skin. At least the toxin from these is long gone and it is just annoying rather than painful.










These are plants are well worth avoiding!

Regards,
David


----------



## Sock Puppet (Dec 13, 2009)

Great stuff, I really do love those leaf tails, their camouflage is incredible.


----------



## GeckoJosh (Dec 13, 2009)

Wow its great to see a species that is so rarely photographed, well done


----------

