Night of Nights . . .

Be still my pounding heart !  A truly magnificent adult Mixophyes iteratus

Amanda & I went for a drive in the bush on Friday night, cameras in hand to see what native animals we could find to photograph.  It turns out that after last week's adventure, wifey was really keen to get back out there.  

What a night it was.  The highlight was encountering a major breeding event for the endangered Giant barred frog, Mixophyes iteratus.  As mentioned in a previous past, this species was utterly devastated (presumably) by Chytrid fungus, and in all my years of working locally in the forests of the Hunter valley and Manning Valley, I'd only encountered ONE specimen.  Until Saturday 11th February that was when I found a second specimen in a completely new location.  

Well, I visited an unpublished site for M.iteratus that I know of, deep in the rainforest, from my time working with the Amphibian Research Group at the Uni of Newcastle.  It was a spectacular night, the stuff of pure fantasy, with Mixophyes iteratus calling all around us.  It was reminiscent of my trip with Mike Mahony to a location well to the north of Newcastle where there was roughly a kilometre of M.iteratus calling and echoing along the banks of a rainforest stream.

On Friday night, I actually stopped counting after 20 individuals.  They were literally everywhere.  I took a few representative images, taking great care not to touch or disturb the animals, and quickly left them to their business.  The last thing we were going to do was interfere with an endangered animal in any way, particularly when they were in the middle of a massive breeding event.  

Yesterday I discussed the event with one of my contacts in the Amphibian Research Group at the University of Newcastle, and he knew the species has definitely made a comeback.  But he was utterly shocked at the size of the breeding event we'd encountered.  Sounds like the old crew (and some new members) might be working on this species again soon !

Mixophyes iteratus

Very large female Mixophyes iteratus       

Great barred frog

Great barred frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus, lower Hunter valley, NSW, February 2017
Note the biting midges on this animals' back

The "Barred frogs" genus is a bit of a hodge-podge for common names, and while the scientific names are a mouthful at first, I always prefer the scientific names for this genus because it's easier to remember exactly who is who.  

Look at the posture of this animal - notice how his eyes are pulled down into his head?  This is their response to being illuminated by a torch beam.  It never ceases to amaze me how such a large frog will disappear when they pull their eyes in.  One moment they are sitting there in the open, eyes ablaze.  If you look away for a sec and shine your torch back, suddenly they've vanished into thin air.  But keep looking and your mind will process the scene and mysteriously the frog will eventually re-appear, in exactly the same place, looking like this.  It's a particularly clever adaptation to hide from people !    

This is the most common species of the Mixophyes genus in the lower Hunter Valley, the Great barred frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus.  I didn't realise at the time, but this animal had some sort of midge biting it's back.  This is of particular interest because of the possibility for transmission of the Chytrid fungus.  

I can't help but wonder if this might be a potential pathway the fungus used to spread so far and wide, and devastate vulnerable populations so rapidly.  In all my many decades of herpetology, I cannot remember seeing many photos of frogs with biting midges like I have seen recently.

This might be very easily explained because until frogs populations were endangered globally, many herpetologists considered frogs pretty boring, and were particularly interested in catching them for use as food for their elapid snakes, rather than photographing them.  For example, Litoria flavipunctata was often collected to feed to copperheads and tiger snakes at Mother of Ducks lagoon back in the 70's and 80's by local herpetologists. It wasn't until they had vanished without trace that people realised exactly how special they were, and what an important species we've lost.    

Most herpetologists that I knew didn't bother spending much time trying to photograph frogs, and the availability of cheap, extremely high quality camera gear just wasn't there.  I certainly would not take my gear out on rainy nights when frogs were most active for fear of damaging my equipment.

The risk of accidental transmission by people handling frogs is very real (and why I will never touch a frog I'm photographing these days), but there has to be a mechanism to spread such a virulent pathogen so quickly and widely.  A biting midge might very well be the mechanism that spread the fungus so widely so quickly, getting blown between drainage systems.  An analogue would be Ross river fever, Barmah Forest virus etc for people.  Population booms in mosquitoes result in massive outbreaks in people as the mosquitoes get blown to other areas.     

Another Great barred frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus, lower Hunter valley, NSW, February 2017
Note this animal also has biting midges on it's throat and back

Great barred frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus, lower Hunter valley, NSW, February 2017
Same animal as photo above. Note this animal also has biting midges on it's throat and back

Greater Glider

Greater glider, Petauroides volans

Amanda & I were driving in Hunter valley forest last night when we saw a pair of eyes staring back at us from the top of a very large Eucalyptus sp tree.  This is a Greater glider,  which is essentially a Sugar glider that has been abusing steroids.  They are a truly majestic animal, the size of a large cat, with about 70 cm of long bushy tail.       

     

Brown tree snake

Love the eyes on this beautiful species.   

With the heat wave that we've been experiencing of late, I had a feeling that there would be some interesting animals active as soon as it cooled off a little.  We went for a drive in the bush last night and found quite a few fascinating animals out and about.  

This lovely Brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) is one of my favourite snakes.  They are venomous, though not considered very toxic, and "back-fanged" which some people think means they can't readily envenomate humans.  Sometimes Brown tree snakes can be quite defensive if startled or harassed.  This chap was extremely laid back indeed, and didn't seem to mind me taking a few quick shots as he crossed the road.  As soon as I hit him with the light he froze in place, motionless, hoping I couldn't see him.  This allowed me to get very close and take a few reasonable images of his face.  

I love those huge, doll-like eyes - and a feature that you can't see in the photos - they have a square edge on their ventral scales which is a huge advantage for an animal that lives in trees and on cliff faces.  Beautifully adapted for nocturnal life, and lightly built - ideal for catching birds, bats, frogs, mice etc.  They have been accidentally introduced into Guam where they are a terrible pest, but they evolved here and are 100% native - and an essential part of our environment.     

Brown tree snake Boiga irregularis, foraging on a wet night.  

    

Brown tree snake Boiga irregularis,
He is NOT poised to strike, just frozen motionless, hoping that I can't see him.

A new location for the critically endangered Giant barred river frog, Mixophyes iteratus

Giant barred river frog, Mixophyes iteratus 

The "Great barred Frogs" really copped a pounding when the Chytrid fungus made it's presence known in Australia.  The genus is known as "Mixophyes" and there are three species found in the Hunter valley; M.balbus, M.fasciolatus, and M.iteratus.  Only M.fasciolatus survived the onslaught and retained a shadow of their former numbers.  The other two declined in the Hunter valley to the point where we feared they were lost forever.

I have used the scientific names as the "common names" are pretty useless for this species group.  How many permutations of Giant barred river frog, Great barred river frog and "Stuttering river frog" can you distinguish between and remember?  We serious herpetologists simply call them "iteratus", "fass" and "balbus".  

I will never forget visiting a State Forest well to the north of here with legendary frog expert, Dr Michael Mahony.  It was mid-1990's and we spent a week experiencing evenings of unbelievable herpetological joy - a certain stream, deep within the rainforest that echoed all night long with the rich and extremely deep and guttural calls of Mixophyes iteratus.  I will never forget that week as long as I live, and the sound of the calls of hundreds of these massive frogs echoing through the rainforest.  Waaark, Waaark, Waaark, Waaark, Waaark, Waaark, followed by that series of unique trills.  I am getting shivers down my spine as I write this.  

A particularly memorable aspect of this trip was our first encounter with a most unusual prey item.  We collected a small number of specimens under the extremely strict terms of Mike's scientific research licence.  One frog I personally caught had a couple of strange marks on it's throat - I bagged it and showed it to Mike.  We were both staring at this odd looking specimen when without warning it regurgitated an extremely angry Northern tree funnelweb spider ! ! ! !  We were both utterly gobsmacked.  The frog displayed no ill effects whatsoever and was still very alert and happy the next morning.  Mike & I were a bit taken a-back & relieved that neither of us were bitten by the spider.  

Although we laughed about it at the time, and thought that it was truly a one-off near-miss, it turned out to be a far from once in a lifetime occurrence.  A decade later, a very good friend of mine had exactly the same thing happen while working on this species at the same location with Mike.  Only this time, John didn't see the frog regurgitate the spider in the bag and was actually bitten by an extremely, extremely angry Northern tree funnelweb through the bag.  Make no mistake, this was a life and death situation, with a hideously venomous spider.  After a truly harrowing experience, it turned out to be a dry bite.  The spider had either spent all of its venom in the frog, or the plastic bag prevented a medically important dose of venom reaching John's fingers.  Phew ! 

Back to the local situation.  M.iteratus is well known from the State forests of the Hunter valley.  However, it's population was devastated by Chytrid.  Look up "Chytridiomycosis" if you'd like a taste of how utterly destructive this pathogen has been.  Despite spending many, many hours in local prime habitat during ideal weather patterns for the best part of a decade, I found only one specimen of M.iteratus in all that time.  I found maybe twenty specimens of M.balbus over that same period.  I found literally several hundred M.fasciolatus per year over that time.  The quiet consensus among professional herpetologists was that M.iteratus was locally extinct, and M.balbus was in dire straights.  It painted my experiences in the northern forests with Mike in their true light.  That location was the ONLY place on the entire planet where this animal was still found.  It was considered to be extinct in ALL of it's other known range . . .

We found a very large pregnant female specimen of M.iteratus last year.  It was in a location that was well-known for the species, so I made a record in my field journal and took a metric ton of photographs.  Last Saturday night, during the heatwave conditions, my wife & I found a male specimen in a completely new location.  We took a couple of voucher photos to enable a professional to be confident of our identification, took a GPS reading and moved on, smiling from ear to ear.  We are so happy this species is slowly clawing it's way back from the tottering edge of near extinction.                                          

Portrait of a Lesueur's tree frog

Male Lesueur's tree frog, Watagan state forest, 11th February 2017   

Lesueur's tree frogs are quite a common species throughout the Hunter Valley, and easily found on the banks of rocky streams in wetter forests.  They are easily found as their eye-shine is a give-away in the beam of a headtorch, and typically they sit right out in the open, on exposed rock calling beside the streams.

They are an intriguing animal as during the day, they are a fairly uniform light tan colour with some slightly darker brown markings.  During the breeding season (the summer months), the males change at night into the most wonderful bright lemon colour, which makes identifying the sexes a very simple affair.  The females remain the normal, mostly beige colour, and are usually much larger in size.

My first job as a graduate from Uni, I had the most remarkable good fortune to work for the Amphibian Research Group at the University of Newcastle.  I spent many many many blissful hours watching this species in the field, and the males can be particularly active, wrestling and tussling with each other when a female arrives at the stream.  

Male Lesueur's tree frog, Watagan state forest, 11th February 2017 

Another nocturnal elapid . . .

Bandy Bandy - a most unusual snake, Watagan State Forest, NSW 

Bandy bandy's are an enigmatic little beast that seem to turn up at odd times in unpredictable places.  Allegedly they specialise in eating blind snakes, but I have not kept this species so cannot say for sure.  Many, many, many years ago, way back in the last millennium, a friend had an absolutely massive bandy bandy, about one metre in length.  He found it in Lightning Ridge, NSW, and kept it for many years.  It quite happily ate pink mice.  

On average I bump into two or three per year while I'm out in the bush, and the vast majority are between 10cm - 50cm in length, and around the thickness of the pinkie finger on my left hand to perhaps as thick as the index finger on my right hand.  The biggest specimen I have observed was almost one metre in length, and quite thick - perhaps as thick as my right thumb.  

I could honestly not predict when they are likely to appear or the environment I'll find them in.  They seem to just appear without any discernible pattern where you find them - I have encountered them in everything from littoral rainforest, open woodland dominated by Callitris spp & Eucalyptus spp, brigalow scrub, throughout the whole NSW Central West (where it snows every winter) and even behind the sand dunes on a local beach here in Newcastle.  

In short, these are a tough, adaptable little beast, and have a generally very laid back approach to life, though being an elapid snake, they are venomous and you'd never handle one unless you had to.  The reason I believe this is the Eastern small-eyed snake.  

When I was a young fellow, Small-eyed snakes were regarded as "venomous but harmless" in most of the books. They'd bite if you were silly enough to handle them carelessly, but no-one paid any attention to it.  Right up until a fellow died of rhabdomylosis (basically complications involving massive muscle destruction overloading the kidneys with toxins associated with tissue death). Suddenly they are now classified as "dangerously venomous" and sensible herpetologists treat them with respect.  To me, Bandy bandys look too much like an upmarket version of an Eastern small eyed snake.  Take the bands away & they look way too much like an Eastern small eyed snake for comfort.                

This little chappie was crossing the road late on Saturday night, and I stopped for a couple of quick shots.  He was only about 35 - 40 cm in total length and extremely active, due to the extreme weather we endured this last weekend.  Notice how the bands at the nose have the characteristic, distinctive yellow tinge while the rest of the bands are all black & white?     

Bandy Bandy, Watagan State Forest Saturday 11th February 2017

Nocturnally foraging elapid snakes

A beautiful Red-bellied black snake nocturnally foraging, 12th February 2017   

With all of the unusually warm conditions we are experiencing in the Hunter Valley at the moment, many humans are restricting their movements during the daytime to avoid the heat.  It was quite strange on the roads this weekend; there were so few cars around.  As the mercury climbed to the mid 40 degree range, most sensible people stayed directly in front of their air conditioner.   

After a sweltering Saturday, my wife and I decided to take advantage of the situation, and grabbed our cameras and went bush to see what animals were active.  We were not disappointed.  

It was almost 22:00 hrs when we visited one of my favourite firedams.  It was a bit strange because the dam was silent, which was most definitely NOT normal. The moon was full, which often dampens frog activity, I presume because they are much more visible to predators.  Still, it wasn't normal.  There should have been frogs calling, perhaps a bit more subdued than normal, despite the relatively bright conditions.  

I had a feeling what the reason was, and I slowly panned my head torch around the small firedam.  Sure enough, there was a small (~4.5 - 5 ft) adult Red-bellied black snake methodically foraging amongst the leaf litter and vegetation in the dam.  As I continued to pan slowly around, I could see an adult Eastern water skink, which will also gleefully eat small frogs, and is a very suitable meal for a Red-bellied black snake.  There was also the usual eye shine from ten or so adult Striped-marsh frogs, a very common species at this location.  

So just like people, many animals will also switch their activity patterns during periods of extreme weather.  Large, venomous snakes such as Red-bellied black snakes and Eastern brown snakes are extremely like to become nocturnal during these times too.