SA Dragons Jan/Feb 2022 (Part 2)
WA/SA Border to Canberra (5th-10th)
Day 6
With the Nullarbor portion of our trip completed, we turned back east. Our first target for the day was a rather unknown species, Mckenzie’s Dragon (Ctenophorus mckenziei). The species is currently known from two separate populations at either end of the Nullarbor. A few photos exist of the WA ones but I couldn’t find any of the SA animals, certainly no herper had been able to photograph any recently. Nevertheless, I was keen to give it a crack and we headed into the woodland near Nundroo roadhouse, cruising slowly down some dirt tracks. After a decent number of kilometres without seeing a thing, we decided to turn around, but not before hopping out for a walk. It didn’t take long for me to spy a dragon shooting around and after looking through the binos, I was surprised and delighted to realise I was looking at an adult male of our quarry. Even better, we managed to get some photos of it. Stoked with our find, we headed back out to the highway, with a complementary look at a pretty male Bicycle Dragon (Ctenophorus cristatus) along the way.
The rest of the day was far less successful, missing both our targets and only finding numerous more pictus and a dead dolphin calf near Fowlers Bay. Cheering ourselves up with a late lunch at Ceduna, we headed into the mallee for the night. My late afternoon attempt for a Painted Delma (Delma petersoni) was short lived, after finding a Burton’s Legless Lizard (Lialis burtonis) I gave up due to general tiredness and lack of motivation, despite how much I’d been wanting to see the species again. The temperature dropped as darkness fell and a quick cruise failed to yield any snakes. Our first gecko target was easy, with numerous Desert Stone Geckos (Diplodactylus wiru) eyeshined on the prowl, along with the occasional Starred Knob-tail (Nephrurus stellatus). Unfortunately, the target I wanted most, a Southern Sandplain Gecko (Lucasium bungabinna), remained elusive despite a solid spotlighting effort. It seemed we’d already used most of our herp credits for the Mckenzie’s in the morning, something I couldn’t complain about.
Day 7
Continuing our predominant theme of dragons the next morning we headed south east into more mallee in search of Linga Dragons (Diporiphora linga). Conditions seemed perfect and we spied numerous Mallee Dragons (Ctenophorus fordi), Barred Wedge-snouted Ctenotus (Ctenotus schomburgkii) and Southern Mallee Ctenotus (Ctenotus atlas) among the spinifex. Despite several hours looking and the numerous other lizards, the Linga Dragons evaded us. More Bicycle Dragons greeted us on the road out as we headed to Kimba.
After the necessary servo pie at Kimba, we continued into yet more mallee on the trail of Thornys and burrowing snakes. That was until La Nina decided enough was enough and we found our road blocked by a large and very recently formed lake. While contemplating the temporary water body we managed some photos of a nearby Bicycle Dragon as a local farmer turned up. Tony had brought his kayak along to investigate the depth of the lake and after his paddle was kind enough to guide us around the road block through his paddocks. It certainly set us up well time wise, as just 15 minutes after rejoining the road we found a Thorny Devil (Moloch horridus) standing proudly in the open. It was Bridget’s first one and a colourful individual to boot so we spent some time sitting and watching it before heading off to cook dinner and wait for dark. There was several burrowing snakes in the area and with the good conditions I was keen to see what we could find. However, after three hours cruising and spotlighting for a single Prong-snouted Blindsnake I was significantly less enthused and settled for my first Ranges Stone Gecko (Diplodactylus furcosus) before calling it a night.
Day 8
At this point trip plans had to take a turn. While all the rainfall was likely driving an increase in activity of all sorts of species I wanted to see in the Coober area, it had also blocked the Stuart Highway. However, we could still get to Pernatty for a night of cruising and knobtails, so we had a day to use while waiting for dark. Naturally, we used it for a quick, failed detour to try and find a Flinders Ranges Worm-lizard (Aprasia pseudopulchella), only coming across numerous hatchling Swift Dragons (Ctenophorus modestus) and some scorpion poachers.
Leaving Port Augusta late in the evening we arrived at last light and began to cruise. Almost immediately, we came across a small Brown sitting angrily in the middle of the road. It took me a second to identify it as I wasn’t expecting to find one among red sand dunes, my first Strap-snouted Brown Snake (Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha). Relieved I’d finally managed to see this bogey species, we’d only made it 30 seconds down the road when we jumped out for another Brown, a young Ringed Brown Snake (Pseudonaja modesta). To wrap up our first few minutes of success, some passing truck headlights also highlighted a Western Hooded Scaly-foot (Pygopus nigriceps) just venturing out onto the road. Three species, two of them new, in less than five minutes and we were off to a flying start. We continued to cruise for another hour, with the only other species to be found an Interior Blind Snake (Anilios endoterus), although we did finish the night with a total of ten Western Hoodeds. Donning the headtorches we headed into the dunes in search of Pernatty Knob-tails (Nephrurus deleani), which didn’t take long to find with three, including a hatchy, in around ten minutes. Bridget also came across a random Broad-banded Sandswimmer (Eremiascincus richardsonii) before we settled in to photograph our finds. Tired but happy, I managed to get us back to Port Augusta a little after 1:00 am to camp.
Day 9
The next few days were a little light on the herps as we mucked around east SA. Our only real target on the first day was the Red-barred Dragon (Ctenophorus vadnappa), which took much of the available daylight to track down. Our first stop at a gorge in the Northern Flinders was unsuccessful for both the dragon and the Northern Flinders Ranges Froglet (Crinia flindersensis), so we bit the bullet and drove up to Copley. Our reward for all the kilometres consisted of a sighting of a singular juvenile, but that was far better than getting skunked. The rest of the day was spent driving back south to Burra for a pub meal and an early night.
Day 10
We whiled away much of the next morning near Burra before heading to the Murray mallee. It was rather toasty when we arrived, but fortunately not too hot to miss the many hatchling and occasional adult Eastern Mallee Dragon (Ctenophorus spinodomus) getting around the spinifex. We retreated to Waikerie after to wait out the heat before returning at nightfall for Jewelled Geckos (Strophurus elderi). It took a while but we eventually found several emerging from the spinifex before turning tail and making it to Mildura to camp.
Day 11
Our final morning saw us drive straight back into mallee for the last time, but this time in Vic for their undescribed Mallee Dragon species. It was a little on the cool side but it didn’t take too long to spot a juvenile which gave us the slip. Given the distance we had to cover back to Canberra we didn’t hang around for another and continued on. Our final detour took us to the sparse veg at the edge of one of Vic’s many salt lakes. Our target proved easy to find, with many juvenile Peters’ Earless Dragons (Tympanocryptis petersi) active, but a little difficult to photograph. Stoked nevertheless with our final find we spent the rest of the day covering the kilometres back to Canberra with speed. It’d been a good trip, finding quite a number of species I hadn’t expected to, while also missing a number I thought we were all but guaranteed. Unpredictability is one of the draws of the hobby I suppose. Nevertheless, I finished up with a total of 435 species, putting the yearly goal of 50 (taking me to 450) within fairly easy reach. This will likely be the last entry for a while, but I’ll be looking forward to the next small brown skink adventure when it happens.
