# A couple of recent herping photos part 2 of 2.



## GeckPhotographer (Dec 26, 2012)

So recently I've been doing a bit of herping here and there. My aim for herping this year was to get my list of species of Australian reptiles seen (and positively ID'd) to 200 species. Having completed this earlier this year (in a thread yet to be posted), I decided to head to Qld with some friends lets call one Cheniqua and the other The Driver, to see just how many I could elevate my list to. My starting count for the trip was 207. 

Staying at my mates place in Brisbane the first night while preparing dinner Cheniqua ran over the tail of a skink with the bbq, the skink was Anomalopus verreauxii a reptick for me bringing my count up to 208. I didn't photograph this since I don't like skinks without tails, but I was happy to get such a quick tick.

Setting off the next day we planned to get out of Brisbane as quick as possible and head as far towards our destination as possible. On the way out we managed to find a few reptiles one of which was new for me. 

This Broad-banded Sand Swimmer was a tick I've been looking forward to for a fair while, they're a very nice looking animal and have plenty of character for a little skink. 



Eremiascincus richardsonii by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Eremiascincus richardsonii by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Eremiascincus richardsonii by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr




Eastern Robust Sliders were the first Lerista for my friend Cheniqua and the photos I got here were much better than my previous ones so I was pretty happy. 



Lerista punctatovittata by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Lerista punctatovittata by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Lerista punctatovittata by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



I also managed to spot another common reptiles that everyone on the trip had seen before but which I thought warranted photos anyway.
Burn's Dragons I had seen often before but never photographed. 



Amphibolurus burnsi by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Amphibolurus burnsi by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Amphibolurus burnsi by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr




Boulenger's Skinks are fairly common but this one was particularly bright. 



Morethia boulengeri by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

Stopping for the night was decided we mayaswell poke around before hitting the sack. 
I quickly located several marbled velvet geckos on the trees around and decided that these would probably end up a couch tick in the near future and that I mayaswell photograph them. I also located several Eastern Spiny-tailed Geckos and knowing my previous photos weren't crash hot decided to take pictures of these as well. Ground geckos were very sparse with only one D.vittatus and one L.steindachneri finding my torch beam, I decided not to photograph either since I'd done both before and was somewhat tired. 



Oedura marmorata by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Oedura marmorata by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr




Strophurus williamsi by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Strophurus williamsi by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr





The second day of our trip was a lot of driving. So much driving in fact I can only remember seeing 3 reptiles the entire day. Like all perfectly ironic situations 2 of these reptiles happened to be found on the road at exactly the moment an oncoming truck blinded us with its powerful lights causing us to see the reptile only as it went under The Drivers wheel. While our road killed Eastern Brown and Moon Snakes were disappointing I'd seen both before and hoped this indicated weather conditions good for reptiles on the road. I did manage to find one rep-tick for the day just before going to bed, this Robust Dtella was on a small rock pile just where we decided to call it a night. 



Gehyra robusta by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Gehyra robusta by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



By the morning of the third day we had arrived at our desired location and decided to get right into the swing of finding things. 
Poking around early in the morning we quickly found several Ridge-tailed Monitors out basking, these were a new species for me and since monitors are my second favourite reptile group one I was very excited about. 

Varanus acanthurus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Varanus acanthurus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



A few small skinks shuttled around the place, those we managed to catch up too turned out to be either Carlia amax a new species for me, or Ctenotus of a species I'm still trying to identify. 



Carlia amax by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Carlia amax by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr




Ctenotus sp. by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr


Ctenotus sp. by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Basking on one tree we located a Gilberts Dragon, the variation among these up there was absolutely horrendous, the individuals found near water bodies were completely different to those found in the surrounding savannah. This led me several times to explain that I'd found a temporalis before a closer look revealed it a weird looking gilberts. 



Amphibolurus gilberti by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Amphibolurus gilberti by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr


In one area where the spinifex had been recently burned we noticed a large skink (or perhaps small monitor) take off into a patch of grass, surrounding the grass Cheniqua exclaimed that he'd found it, pointing to the lithe long body of a Delma nasuta, which was obviously not what we'd seen run in, but nonetheless one of my top 5 favourite species for the trip and a new one at that. (We never did find what actually ran in there).



Delma nasuta by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Delma nasuta by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Delma nasuta by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Cheniqua was getting unhappy that me and The Driver were finding all the Ackies so he called it time to head into town, and Maccas. While I'm not real a maccas fan, after a couple days of tinned food and noodles I was pretty happy to engulf a couple cheeseburgers. After our pit stop we decided to keep heading on looking for reptiles. The middle of the days here were very hot and we didn't manage to locate anything, so we headed back to maccas for afternoon tea, lay around and then set off later in the afternoon to see if we could find anything as it cooled down. 
Although our day time efforts were a bit of a flop, once it became dark we managed to locate a number of species, a number of which were new for us. 

These Kristin's Geckos were relatively common both on the road and on plants nearby. 



Strophurus krisalys by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Strophurus krisalys by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



We were told if we didn't find an Olive Python on the road where we were something was wrong. Something must have been wrong since no olive pythons decided to greet us on the road. We did however manage to find one wading through a swamp. 



Liasis olivaceus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

Cheniqua and The Driver weren't that keen on frogs but I took some pictures of this Cyclorana in case it was something new for me. My frog buddies tell me that current maps say C.longipes aren't found in Qld so I suppose this was just C.brevipes which I've seen before, either way I'll probably not ever put an ID on it, just a reason to go back. 



Cyclorana sp. by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

I have picture from a previous trip of Fat-tailed Geckos but my memory told me that at the time it was a particularly hard gecko to photograph so when I found one this trip I was happy to try and rectify this. As it turns out, they are the absolute pit of the earth to photograph, I spent almost half and hour to get just 2 pictures and be happy with neither. 



Diplodactylus conspicillatus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Diplodactylus conspicillatus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr


As we continued driving I fell asleep in the back of the car, I must have been pretty damn tired because I am told that we pulled over and I was told a Lucasium immaculatum (one of the geckos I was most looking forward to seeing) was on the road and that I replied with a grunt and that I didn't care.  We apparently pulled over not much later to get some shut eye. 

The next few days I must have still been pretty tired since it all kinda blurs together. I know we found a bunch of things, I photographed some and didn't photograph others. I think the only new species out of these days I didn't photograph was Ctenotus pulchellus. 

The things I did photograph: 

A big Yellow Spotted Monitor on the side of the road. (If I don't mention the barbed wire nobody will see it right? Inconsiderate monitor not sitting where we had a clear backround).



Varanus panoptes by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

Two Lined Dragons which were located on trees and termite mounds around the place. 



Diporiphora bilineata by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

A Hot-as Whip Snake (official common name as of now), that we found somewhere or other. 



Demansia quaesitor by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Demansia quaesitor by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Another Ctenotus I haven't ID'd yet. 



Ctenotus sp. by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

A Frill Necked Lizard, I may have taken over 100 pictures of this. :/



Chlamydosaurus kingii (Frill-necked Lizard) by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Chlamydosaurus kingii (Frill-necked Lizard) by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Chlamydosaurus kingii (Frill-necked Lizard) by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Chlamydosaurus kingii (Frill-necked Lizard) by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Chlamydosaurus kingii (Frill-necked Lizard) by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Chlamydosaurus kingii (Frill-necked Lizard) by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr







And on the last day up there we finally found one of our absolute main targets for the trip. A Storr's Monitor. I love monitors and the smaller the better. This was definitely a cool find. 



Varanus storri by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Varanus storri by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



(Very rainy nights during this time account for the low number of geckos found). 

Our time out there had been great, but it was time to head back. Herping all the way of course. 
As we started heading back we found some very cool reptiles.
These Pebble Mimicking Dragons were very common but not super easy to spot on the roadside. 



Tympanocryptis tetraporophora by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Tympanocryptis tetraporophora by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

Much easier to spot in the breakaway country was this small Perentie, while this is Australia's largest monitor species this one was far smaller than the Panoptes we saw. 



Varanus giganteus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Varanus giganteus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Varanus giganteus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr




While walking around the breakaway we got lucky and found this even smaller and more camouflaged Pebble Mimicking Dragon. These Gibber Dragons are designed to perfectly fade into the surrounding rocks. We saw this individual run and though we located the exact meter it stopped in couldn't spot it to stay alive, fortunately it moved again when we passed our hand over its hiding spot, showing just how camouflaged it was. 



Tympanocryptis intima by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Tympanocryptis intima by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Tympanocryptis intima by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr





We decided to stay in the breakaway for the start of the night to see what geckos were around. We were in luck, a multitude of Knob-tailed Geckos, Zig-zag Geckos, and Pale Striped Geckos (thank god I was awake this time), were active on the ground. While I didn't get time to photograph them here we also saw Robust Dtellas and Tessellated Geckos both of which looked vastly different to counterparts of the species I had seen elsewhere. 



Nephrurus asper by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Nephrurus asper by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Nephrurus asper by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Nephrurus asper by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr




Lucasium immaculatum by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Lucasium immaculatum by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Lucasium immaculatum by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr




Amalosia rhombifer by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Amalosia rhombifer by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr









The next day we started road cruising early but saw only a few more Panoptes, that is until we came upon this beautiful gravid Black Soil Bearded Dragon (known by many as Pygmy Bearded Dragon). 



Pogona henriettalawsoni by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Pogona henriettalawsoni by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Pogona henriettalawsoni by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Pogona henriettalawsoni by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr





We had a very special stop to make this day. Angus Emmott who recently described and named a new species of dragon after his daughter had agreed to take us out and show us some of these dragons. Arriving at his place we were informed the morning was the best time to see the dragons and that we were more than welcome to stay the night if we wished. Pretty damn tired from the trip so far we happily took up his kind offer and spent some time poking around his garden for reptiles. 

Once the afternoon had cooled down a bit Lerista emmotti were common under leaf litter in the garden. 



Lerista emmotti by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

I found this Ctenotus in the backyard and ID'd it as C.leonhardii only to be told by Angus that C.leonhardii hadn't been recorded from the property before and that it was probably C.hebetior instead. Closer examination revealed he was right and that 2 extra black stripes I hadn't noticed were indeed present. 



Ctenotus hebetior by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr

I was too tired that night to do any geckoing despite the promise of R.angusta. The next morning Angus took us out to see Amelia's Spinifex Definitely not Cane-grass Dragon from the type locality. Again, I may have taken over 100 photos. While these may only be found in spinifex association we didn't find any of them on spinifex, instead they seemed to prefer basking in small trees and on dead sticks, dropping and quickly running to spinifex when seen from a distance. 



Diporiphora ameliae by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Diporiphora ameliae by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Diporiphora ameliae_008 by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Diporiphora ameliae by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Diporiphora ameliae by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Diporiphora ameliae by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Diporiphora ameliae by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr







We had lunch with the Emmott's then decided to try and make a fair bit of distance toward home. Again time blurred for me seeing as I can't remember where we got to that day or, which day that was. '

Either way I think it must of been the day after that I took these pictures:

Golden-tailed Geckos are very very pretty. I was a bit unhappy we only found one with a regen tail before being hit by a huge storm that cut short gecko hunting. 



Strophurus taenicauda by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Strophurus taenicauda by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr


A Couple Spotted Black Snakes were also out on the road before the storm rolled in. 



Pseudechis guttatus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr


Pseudechis guttatus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr



Pseudechis guttatus by Stephen Mahony, on Flickr


And then we got back to Brisbane. I flew home some time (far too early) the next morning. And a great herping trip came to the end. 

Hope you enjoy the thread, now I only wish I could remember the trip. Lucky I have some photos to remind me.


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## Elapidae1 (Dec 26, 2012)

Stunning photography mate.


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## emmalene_bunny (Dec 26, 2012)

Some absolutely amazing photos you have taken! Love the last one the best of the black snake


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## Rob (Dec 26, 2012)

Yes, awesome pics. Thanks for sharing.


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## Supra_man87 (Dec 26, 2012)

Some awesome shots there! Makes me remember a recent trip to Mt Isa not long ago. There's one spot just out of town that's crawling with Storrs. Some amazing animals you found.


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## Dragonwolf (Dec 26, 2012)

Absolutely beautiful photos.... so jealous of your skill right now  and with the animals you've seen. 
Does the cute chubby Cyclorana have a common name? I think that's what I found in my hallway after the rain last night.


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## GeckPhotographer (Dec 26, 2012)

Thanks guys.



> Some awesome shots there! Makes me remember a recent trip to Mt Isa not long ago. There's one spot just out of town that's crawling with Storrs. Some amazing animals you found.


It's a great place. We were told the same about Storr's by a lot of people only one of the recommended places turned out, we saw heaps at that place but they were all under spinifex and down burrows before you could blink.



> Does the cute chubby Cyclorana have a common name? I think that's what I found in my hallway after the rain last night.


The genus takes the common name of Water-holding or Desert Burrowing Frogs. Without knowing which species it was I couldn't give a name for it. 

Where abouts are you located, I can always take a guess at what frogs are in your hall.


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## vicherps (Dec 26, 2012)

If it is a brevipes the common name would be the Short-footed Frog.


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## GeckPhotographer (Dec 26, 2012)

> If it is a brevipes the common name would be the Short-footed Frog.



And longipes, long footed. Funny thing about how that works hey.


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## Dragonwolf (Dec 26, 2012)

Dalby. I've always called them Sand Frogs because that's usually where I find them but I've had a few turn up in the house and on the verandahs (high set house) - maybe because of the recent rain.


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## Chanzey (Dec 27, 2012)

Awesome photos! Can't wait until I have an opportunity to go on a herping trip like that. 

Cheers mate


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## Endeavour (Dec 27, 2012)

What can you say, amazing photographs, there's a 2014 APS calendar right there.


Kindest regards


Endeavour


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## GeckPhotographer (Dec 27, 2012)

> Awesome photos! Can't wait until I have an opportunity to go on a herping trip like that.
> 
> Cheers mate


Thanks, it says you live in Townsville, if that's the case and you're serious about herping you have no problems at all. You're in pretty much the best part of the world and if you network right there are billions of herpers around you. I only made this possible because of the great friends I had up in Brisbane.



> Dalby. I've always called them Sand Frogs because that's usually where I find them but I've had a few turn up in the house and on the verandahs (high set house) - maybe because of the recent rain.



Dalby actually has a lot of options. If they look just like the picture then yes they could be short footed burrowing frogs, but you've got another couple of species of burrowing frogs there as well. 



> What can you say, amazing photographs, there's a 2014 APS calendar right there.



Thanks Endeavor, a few of these photos certainly went into my short list folder for better pics.


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## Pilbarensis (Dec 27, 2012)

Awesome job at getting the shots of the Perentie, L. immacultum & Diporiphora ameliae. Frilly shots were actually some of the best I've seen.


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## MonitorMayhem (Dec 27, 2012)

thanks for sharing wonderful photos enjoyed looking at them very much
cheers mick


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## jedi_339 (Dec 27, 2012)

Awesome pictures, looks like a great trip. How far North West did you end up? (I might have skimmed that bit)

I think you have the wrong gender in the flickr tag for the genus of your Pygmy bearded dragons 

Or I missed the joke because it's a female :lol:


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## ToadCountry (Dec 27, 2012)

Brilliant photos, absolutely LOVED them !!


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## GeckPhotographer (Dec 27, 2012)

As I keep saying, thanks heaps guys. This was one of the most fun trips I've ever done. 



> I think you have the wrong gender in the flickr tag for the genus of your Pygmy bearded dragons
> 
> Or I missed the joke because it's a female :lol:



Haha yeah we were just having a laugh calling it Henrietta since it was a nice gravid female.  



> Awesome job at getting the shots of the Perentie, L. immacultum & Diporiphora ameliae. Frilly shots were actually some of the best I've seen.



Thanks heaps. And considering the multitude of Frilly shots out there I really appreciate that. Many of the frilly pics were taken with a 24mm lens, my flash set up for that isn't very good and it was one of the first times I've used it for reptiles so I was pleased how the pics worked out.


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## clopo (Dec 27, 2012)

Great shots. The book i have has C. longipes in QLD, i have found a few around here in the last few weeks. Jealous of the Storrs and Perentie.


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## GeckPhotographer (Dec 27, 2012)

> Great shots. The book i have has C. longipes in QLD, i have found a few around here in the last few weeks. Jealous of the Storrs and Perentie.



Yeah everything I've looked at has that it should be pretty much just longipes and novas there. But Cyclorana are totally crap, one of the worst genera in Australian frogs behind Neobatrachus and Upes.  I saw maybe 20-30 of whatever that frog was just photographed this one cause it was in a convenient place. 

Next time I come up (I'll make a way to do it as soon as I can, it was so good), we can go get Storr's, I still want to see an adult.


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## Bushman (Dec 27, 2012)

Very good work Stephen. Beautifully crisp, well focused and arranged.
Do you mind me giving you some constructive criticism?


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## GeckPhotographer (Dec 27, 2012)

> Do you mind me giving you some constructive criticism?



Not at all. I welcome it, certainly a lot of the photos need it (though if I know they need it do they need it?), the one thing I'm most unhappy about is that I clean my lens pretty often and I'm still getting dirt specs in all my pics, (probably on the sensor grrrr.)


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## clopo (Dec 27, 2012)

I have been having trouble with nova and australis of late. I am pretty sure they are both here but im not to sure of the best way to distinguish them, the field guide doesnt really help. cultripes is meant to be here aswell but i havent found any yet.


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## Bushman (Dec 27, 2012)

GeckPhotographer said:


> Not at all. I welcome it...


Thanks for being open to criticism Stephen. 8) 
A few of your 'portrait' close-ups have the subject's eye in or near the middle of the composition. This is possibly due to having centre focussing on the eye which is recommended. However I suggest that after you lock focus on the eye, you pan to include more of the body.


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## GeckPhotographer (Dec 27, 2012)

> Thanks for being open to criticism Stephen. 8)
> A few of your 'portrait' close-ups have the subject's eye in or near the middle of the composition. This is possibly due to having centre focussing on the eye which is recommended. However I suggest that after you lock focus on the eye, you pan to include more of the body.



Thanks for the criticism, by portrait close up are you referring to the headshots? I had a look through and you're right a lot of them are very close to the centre. I'll likely go back and re-crop those so there's more room in front of the animal. One thing though is that I intend these headshots to be headshots and I find it very aesthetically displeasing to have to much body in them, many of them have already been cropped to make sure less of the body is in the shot.


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## Mangy_Wombat (Dec 27, 2012)

Absolutely stunning photos. Your photography skills are very impressive.

They are all stunning examples. Simply beautiful.


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## damian83 (Dec 27, 2012)

Thanks for sharing......great pics......


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## Bushman (Dec 30, 2012)

GeckPhotographer said:


> Thanks for the criticism, by portrait close up are you referring to the headshots? I had a look through and you're right a lot of them are very close to the centre. I'll likely go back and re-crop those so there's more room in front of the animal. One thing though is that I intend these headshots to be headshots and I find it very aesthetically displeasing to have to much body in them, many of them have already been cropped to make sure less of the body is in the shot.


My pleasure mate. Thanks for taking it so well. 8) 
Yes, by portraits I mean headshots. I would have thought you'd be better off re-cropping the head-centred shots to include _more_ of the body?? Pehaps it's just a matter of taste then. Either way though, the eye/head in or near the centre of an image is aesthetically dangerous imo. If you can make these images work by having even less body and more negative space then good on you for originality.


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