Angry Northern Quolls

As part of a fauna survey in northern Australia, Northern Quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) capture and monitoring is important. These native carnivorous marsupials are endangered, especially from introduced predators and the poisonous Cane Toads spreading across the north. All Australian Zoologists have a great respect when catching these wonderful, but aggressive quolls.

That's one angry male Northern Quoll, and those long teeth will go through a glove like a hot knife through butter. Interesting to have such a big male, as all males die after mating.

Typical habitat of Northern Quolls, rocks with lots of hiding holes and big spinifex clumps. Lots of food too, small mammals, lizards and birds.

Another beautiful but annoyed quoll, running around in it's cage.

This time it's a smaller female, but still with a nasty set of teeth that will bite to the bone, if she gets a hold of you!

Quolls often have this crazy look and will go still and pretend to be dead, so you losen your grip, suddenly they twist and are gone! Doesn't she have a lovely "I just want to kill you" look?

Crested Dragon Video

In keeping with the dragons theme, here is a short video of a Crested Dragon (Ctenophorus cristatus)
found warming itself on a rock along the Hyden-Norseman Road, in the south-eastern part of Western Australia. A wonderful area of extensive Salmon Gums woodlands with big rock outcrops. This dragon except for the tail and leg bands, lacks the usual colours so is probably a juvenile or young female.

These lizards belong to a group often called Bicycle Dragons, because when they run fast they are upright and running on their back legs.

The Dragons

There are about 70 species of dragons found in Australia in many different habitats, most being found in the warm arid northern areas.

The area around Wodgina provides a number of habitats for dragons. One species would occur on or near the rocks, while a different one would occur on the sandy plains below, often within metres of each other.

The sandy soil loving Central Military Dragon (Ctenophorus isolepis).

The rocky soil loving Ring-tailed Dragon (Ctenophorus caudicinctus).

 

A dragon that loves eucalypt-lined river systems in the Pilbara is the Long-nosed Dragon (Amphibolurus longirostris). 

 

Easy to identify with that long nose and super-white lip.

 

This is one lucky dragon, a Dwarf Bearded Dragon (Pogona minor), who was almost a pancake. You can see he's sitting on our tyre track from the way in and almost got run over when we were coming out.

 

He (or she) wasn't going to move.

 

Wonderful face patterns, including a strong ring-like structure I haven't seen before.

 

A nicely shaped head with great scales. You can see the pale Parietal Eye in the centre. For more info about the eye, see  http://wazoologist.blogspot.com/2010/06/wodgina-varanids.html

 

Dusky Woodswallow

A short video of Dusky Woodswallows, one of six Australian woodswallow species. These were found feeding on the edge of the Darling Range scarp in a woodland at Lesmurdie, near Perth Western Australia.

Dusky Woodswallows usually hawk for insects from an branch, but will also land on the ground to feed and sometimes take nectar from blossoms. They often look very sleek, due to a special waxy powder down they spread during preening.

The Snakes of Wodgina

Catching a snake always gives me a rush. They are some of the most wonderful and beautiful animals found in the Pilbara, but must always be treated with respect. Wodgina provided some cool snakes.

A Yellow-faced Whipsnake (Demansia psammophis), a day hunting, lightning-fast snake that chases lizards.

They grow to about a metre and are not considered dangerous to humans, but they can bite at lightning speed. I had a close experience with one near Perth that slid out the funnel trap opening while I was trying to see inside. Suddenly I had an annoyed whipsnake head only an inch from my eye, luckily he was only having a look at me too!

The subspecies in the northwest is cupreiceps with a nice copper head and tail.

The wonderful Black-headed Python (Aspidites melanocephalus) we found while driving along the railway road late one afternoon. The videos of this snake are at  http://wazoologist.blogspot.com/2010/06/black-headed-python-videos.html

My boss Trin over the moon holding the Black-headed Python.

One of the four fantastic snakes from the genus Simoselaps. A Desert Banded Snake (Simoselaps anomalus).

Such a beautiful harmless small snake, found in sandy spinifex deserts of Western Australia where it swims through sand to hunt small burrowing lizards.

All of the Simoselaps have stunning body patterns.

Ancient Landscapes

The sun rises again over the ancient landscape at Wodgina.

Some more of that wonderful sky that looks like it's wood or cloth on fire.

Old mountain ranges that are almost worn way.

The line of hard quartz forming the backbone of the ancient range runs to the horizon.

Fresh water in an old river system is a rare sight in this arid land.

Only a small set of pools among the sandstone rocks and nothing else for many miles..

The water attracted aborigines to this rock, leaving many ancient etchings.

A varanid?

A gecko?

Video - a Hemiergis in the garden

What's a Hemiergis? Often called Earless or Mulch skinks, with five of the six Australian species occuring in the southwest of Western Australia. This is a short video of Hemiergis initialis, known as the Southwestern Earless Skink, which is living in our garden. You can tell which species it is by counting toes and the colour of the belly. You can't see it, but this one has a bright yellow colour on the belly.

It's winter here in Perth and the Hemiergis are moving amongst the garden leaf litter during the day, though usually they are only active at night. They love wet cool conditions, so much that if you hold one in your hand too long it starts to get heat stress! The females have live young and sometimes speed up development by hiding in leaf litter with morning sun.

They are a nice little skink and I always love finding these guys when I'm gardening.