Herp Trip #2 - Grasslands

[jordo]

Recently went on a trip to Terrick Terrick National Park, pitfall trapping in Cypress Woodlands and grasslands as well as spotlighting in the grasslands at night. The park wasn't much to look at but it was home to a lot of interesting critters...

Christinus marmoratus, marbled geckos were reasonably common under bark.

After the stormy weather we found this guy between two dams, Chelodina longicollis

The rain also flushed out some blind snakes, we caught 2 species in the same pitline on different nights.

Ramphotyphlops bituberculatus

Ramphotyphlops proximus (yet to be comfirmed)

The spotlighting yielded 11 hooded scaley foots and 2 curl snakes over two nights:

Curl snake, Suta suta

"Hoodie", Pygopus schraderi

Wood gecko, Diplodactylus vittatus caught in a pitfall bucket.

Fat Tailed Dunnart, Sminthopsis crassicaudata found while spotlighting.

Delma inornata, Olive legless lizard.

For all the "birdos" out there we saw plenty of the endangered Plains Wanderer spotlighting, some guys from Birds Aust. came down later in the week and didn't see any :lol:

And we also had a few harp traps out for bats, I think we got 3 species for the week.

(can't remember which one this was...)

 

[ex1dic]

awesome, great to see such an array of different species.

 

[bredli84]

good stuff jordo, was this a uni research trip?

 

[Kitah]

nice pictures quick question, though it may sound really dumb.. do you need a permit or anything to go looking for reptiles in the wild? and whats the best way to actually find anything? from what ive seen so far and heard from others, theres a lot of reptiles up near my uni and id like to go looking for some, but dont even know how to start!

 

[jordo]

good stuff jordo, was this a uni research trip?

Yep.

nice pictures quick question, though it may sound really dumb.. do you need a permit or anything to go looking for reptiles in the wild? and whats the best way to actually find anything? from what ive seen so far and heard from others, theres a lot of reptiles up near my uni and id like to go looking for some, but dont even know how to start!

Yeah you do need a permit, you aren't actually legally allowed to touch wildlife without a permit. It depends on what you're looking for as to what is the best method. Using this trip as an example; spotlighting seemed to be the go for the curl snakes and hoodies (also could have been that we couldn't put pitfalls in the grasslands), things like the blind snakes are better caught in traps unless you're lucky when spotlighting in the right conditions and we also caught plenty of Morethia boulengeri which were common as mud but didn't turn up in traps.

Should have mentioned at the start we also got some laceys, a big eastern brown, a few Lerista bougainvillii, some Cryptoblepharus carnabyi and I think that's about it.

Stay tuned for herp trip #3 sometime over the next few days

 

[ryanharvey1993]

awsome pictures. wood geckoes look so similar to stone geckoes. i would love to see alll them out herping

 

[Kitah]

mhmm sorry, after this post ill stop invading your thread; are you allowed to just look for the animals, without touching at all and by keeping a fairly large distance away, is that still illegal? sorry, know i sound like an idiot, but i know nothing about it

thanks a lot!

 

[eipper]

HI Jordo,

I will id the blind snake when I get more pics from John...I have some Pseudemoia's to sort out I hear as well....Just quick question was the Delma keyed out....if so which reference was used.

It is illegal to disturb native wildlife without a permit....so turning cover, flash photography, helping off a road etc are all illegal.

A Stone Gecko and A Wood Gecko are the same species, Diplodactylus vittatus, however recent dna research has found to be at least another cryptic species currently assigned to D. vittatus.

Ohh and the bat is a Lesser Long ear

Cheers,
Scott

 

[hotrodrob]

what permit do you need, is it the same permit that you need to keep herps or is it a specialist one?

 

[Daniel_Penrith]

What is a pit trap?? Awesome herping great photos!!

 

[eipper]

The permit you require is a scientific research permit, which is granted only for a reason..unfortunantly "I just would like to see reptiles in the bush and take some pics" is not good enough.

A pit trap is a bucket in the ground with some small holes (bigger than an 1/8 of an inch though.....cover larger holes with flywire) for drainage. Usualy and small piece of peanut butter ball is place inside a foam cup to feed any small mammal over night. They are usually used in series with a drift fence and need to be checked first thing in the morning and before dark in the arvo.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[jordo]

Sorry about the late reply, the computer died so I'm now on my sisters laptop.
Scott we didn't key out the Delma but I just had a flick through wilson and swan and there doesn't appear to be many alternatives?
Thanks for the bat ID, I'll have to go through and label all these pics before I forget them all!
I still haven't worked out the Pseudemoia skinks :lol: pretty sure we got the 3 species but when you've had a look it'd be great if you could let me know if we did and how to actually tell the difference between cryodroma and entrecasteauxii.
I found a dead Pseudemoia which John has preserved and he believes it to be a pagenstecheri however it's stripes aren't as wide or obvious as some of the other "pags" we found so I'm not so sure.
Anyway I'll bring this all up again when I post the Falls Creek pics.
cheers, jordo

 

[jordo]

...

 

[eipper]

you get butleri just outside of terrick

Cheers,
Scott

 

[Clairebear]

Just walk around near the uni club and you'll see stuff Xshadow. i haven't seen any there but i've heard there's frillies and stuff. I go driving at night with mates usually. and then things cross the road. a lot of it is luck. It's best not to go turning rocks and stuff unless you're doing it for a reason like the uni trips but you can usually find something without disturbing the natural habitat too badly.

 

[geckodan]

Jordo, were you picking the hooded scaly's up with eyeshine ??

 

[jordo]

you get butleri just outside of terrick

Cheers,
Scott

Saw a few butleri and plenty of australis in the Mallee and I'm pretty sure this was different, this guy had a much sharper nose than the butleri I've seen which have had more blunt snouts. When the computer with my pics is back up and running I'll have another look.

Jordo, were you picking the hooded scaly's up with eyeshine ??

We were finding the hoodies by detecting their movement or sound, we walked the transects spread out search party style and you would spot them when you were about a meter away, they'd be going flat out to get away but they didn't try to hide. Some people didn't have torches and simply heard them rustling and called someone over.