On a camping trip out to the vast Salmon Gum woodlands near Hyden, about 3 hours drive east of Perth, we came across a nice Bynoe's Gecko (Heteronotia binoei). This is a short video of this beautiful little gecko, she's a little sleepy, but still a wonderful reptile to look at. These geckos are very interesting from the fact that they don't need a male to breed, some populations are totally female! They have three set of chromosomes instead of the usual two and basically form clones of each other. Oh no, I'm starting to feel a bit redundant!
The Salmon Gum woodlands are part of the disappearing Great Western Woodlands, a fantastic ecological area in Western Australia and a very sad loss if they were to go. For more infomation about this interesting area, have a look at Great Western Woodlands site and the informative PDF.
3 comments:
A wonderful piece of our natural history that is either going under the flames of "prescribed burning, agriculture or "development". Not enough people appreciated our natural habitats and all the flora and fauna we are losing to population pressure to "develop" it. A very sad tale repeated over and over in our bush.
DR
Thats an interesting fact about geckos!! :)
Thanks for sharing the video...
Regards,
Angad Achappa
Indian Wildlife Photography
Thanks Angad.
Yes Mr. Smiley, it is sad, hopefully we can somehow save most of these last remaining great woodlands before it's too late.
Post a Comment