The Great Gehyra Hunt (Part 1)
The second half of 2022 has gone wildly awry from the original plan, but not in a bad way. For the first major change, I ended up working for AWC at their Wongalara sanctuary in the Top End for a month, with a little bit of Kakadu herping tacked on afterwards. After some time back in Canberra, I was off again to WA and spent a whirlwind three and a half weeks covering the Pilbara, followed by a little bit of the Kimberley and then down to Alice with Scott, Stephen and Naomi for their Gehyra and Heteronotia sampling. I’ve also now moved my Honours to Canberra and so haven’t yet made it back to north Queensland, but I’m still hoping to be visiting there again early next year. My final recent accomplishment was a quick foray back to the cold forests of the Great Divide for my fourth, and for the first time successful, attempt at the Elongated Sunskink (Lampropholis elongata).
I’ve chosen not to include any writing for the pitfall work, as even though many a cool species was seen, it is not the most entertaining to write about. Therefore, the next few entries will follow the gecko sampling through WA and the NT.
Broome to Karratha (17th-22nd of October)
Day’s 1-4
It took much of the first day (flying via Perth) before I was in Broome to meet up with the rest of the gecko team (Scott, Naomi and Stephen). It was certainly hot enough, and we spent the afternoon gathering supplies and organising things for the next few days in Broome before we would head south for sampling. However, once night fell shoes were off, temporary socks were donned and we headed into the muddy, glass filled mangroves looking for snakes. After navigating my way along a channel for a short while, it didn’t take long to spot the target, the endemic Roebuck Bay Mangrove Snake (Myron resetari). Scott also came across a much larger individual and we gingerly layed down in the mud for photos. Deciding to stack our first night, we next headed for some local dunes and some nocturnal Lerista’ing. Following trails in the sand we soon had several Stout Sandsliders (Lerista griffini) and Northwestern Sandsliders (Lerista bipes) along with a more surprising Beaked Blind Snake (Anilios grypus) safely observed. A short walk also produced a sight I was definitely not expecting, with a small Burton’s Legless Lizard (Lialis burtonis) devouring a Stout Sandslider on the edge of the path. A little over seven minutes later and the skink had completely disappeared. A small Mulga (Pseudechis australis) and some good looking Northern Spiny-tailed Geckos (Strophurus ciliaris) rounded out the area before we headed back to our accommodation. A final brief spotlight netted my last new species for the day, a Kimberley Gehyra (Gehyra kimberleyi).
We spent the next three days variously sorting jobs and herping, with a little bit of birding thrown in. Both Scott and my major target failed to show itself, being the seemingly elusive Dampierland Limbless Slider (Lerista apoda). We did manage to find several other species while looking for it over the three days, including a Pindan Dragon (Diporiphora pindan), several Northern Bluetongues (Tiliqua scincoides), a Western Scalyfoot (Pygopus nigriceps), some Plain Tree Gehyras (Gehyra gemina) and an assortment of the other usual gecko culprits. I did a little better with the birds, spying my first Mangrove Grey Fantails, Yellow White-eyes and of course, the infamous Yellow Chats of Roebuck Bay. Finally, our time in Broome came to an end and it was time to start sampling.
Day 5
Heading south in the troopie the next day, our sights were set on the Port Hedland area and some difficult to identify tree Gehyra. A late arvo run to maccas set us up nicely for our first round of spotlighting and sporting our variety of Led Lensers we set out to blind the local Eucalyptus. The basic strategy was to find and bag as many Gehyra and Heteronotia as possible before reconvening, taking pheromone and genetic samples from our willing volunteers, and then releasing them back to their tree, rock or dirt abodes. I soon found a couple of small, grey Gehyra but was quickly distracted by other species, including a young Smooth Knob-tailed Gecko (Nephrurus levis) and my first Pilbara Ground Geckos (Lucasium woodwardi). After refinding the others I found myself spectacularly outdone on the Gehyra front, although my Nephrurus made up for it slightly. Sorting through the haul we came to the hopeful and not altogether confident conclusion we’d managed to catch a few of the target Northern Pilbara Cryptic Gehyra (Gehyra incognita), along with quite a number of Centralian Gehyra (Gehyra montium). G. incognita is practically impossible to identify in the field and we’re still waiting for genetics to confirm our suspicions. The others had also managed to catch some somewhat larger Plain Tree Gehyra, representing either a previously unknown introduced population or a range extension. Flurried sampling and photo taking followed before we packed up and headed for some nearby rocky outcrops.
As I was about to learn, we would use much of the night hours over the next few weeks to try and sample ten of every male Gehyra species present in the Pilbara. And there are a lot of Gehyra species in the area. Wasting no time we were soon out in some ironstone, although the geckos appeared not to be. Two female Large Pilbara Rock Gehyra (Gehyra macra) were all that we found before moving on to some granite boulders. These proved much more productive, with many Medium Pilbara Rock Gehyra (Gehyra media) scurrying around. Also among the boulders were several Eastern Pilbara Spiny-tailed Skinks (Egernia epsisolus), a beautifully patterned and spiny species that were reluctant to leave their home burrows and crevices. The only one we tried to photograph was unimpressed with our efforts and thoroughly uncooperative. By that point it was early morning and with a relatively successful night under our belts, tents were put up and we settled in for as much sleep as possible.
Day 6
Being the Pilbara in late spring, the sun was up early and temperatures climbed rapidly the next morning. Consequently, my tent was soon a sauna and I traded it in for a nearby abandoned camp chair that looked to have weathered the elements for many a year. After napping for several hours in said chair the others finally arose and we packed up and set off for Karratha. Much of the day was spent traveling and sorting accommodation before we arrived at the sampling site for the night on the Burrup Peninsula. We had an hour or so of sunlight left and we fanned out among the boulder piles in search of any and everything. My first new species for the afternoon came in the form of several Russet Snake-eyed Skinks (Cryptoblepharus ustulatus) which were a lovely coppery colour and my 500th Aussie reptile species. Several Gehyra were found in crevices before I spotted the next good find for the afternoon, a single Western Pilbara Spiny-tailed Skink (Egernia cygnitos), a new species for everyone. The final daylight find and my favourite for the day was the head of a Pilbara Crevice Skink (Egernia pilbarensis) peering out from under a fig tree, which promptly disappeared as soon as we tried to get closer.
With darkness finally arriving the team dispersed to track down males of the local endemic Gehyra. I didn’t make it far before yelling Stephen over for our second Pilbara Crevice Skink of the day, which was far more approachable at night. The Gehyra proved a little more difficult to catch and it took several hours to catch 10 male Burrup Peninsula Rock Gehyras (Gehyra peninsularis) and Pilbara Spotted Gehyras (Gehyra punctata). Fortunately, there were plenty of non sampling species getting around with numerous Pilbara Velvet Geckos (Oedura fimbria), a Northern Pilbara Beak-faced Gecko (Diplodactylus galaxias), a Stony-soil Ctenotus (Ctenotus saxatilis) and several hopeful Western Cryptic Gehyra (Gehyra crypta) on the prowl, all new species for myself. Stephen also found a lone Jewelled Gecko (Strophurus elderi) with the local individuals sporting a stunning pattern of larger white blotches than the eastern ones I was used to. Despite only sampling the one spot, after all the geckos had donated their tail tips and pheromones and photos had been taken it was another early morning finish and we made our sleep deprived way back to our caravan park in Karratha.
Day 7
We’d originally booked for two nights in Karratha and so after our plans to arrange access to an area for a Black Prickly Gecko (Heteronotia atra) attempt fell through, it was elected to be a day off, with maybe some casual herping if we wanted to. Naturally, that was not what ended up happening. Planning to scope some boulder field habitat that we thought may harbour an atra, the team headed off in the late arvo, with some last light searching in some nearby granite yielding my first Western Ring-tailed Dragon (Ctenophorus caudicinctus) and another Western Pilbara Spiny-tailed Skink.
Swapping over to the boulder field and donning our head torches, we began to spy the first Gehyra of the night. They lived in the perfect habitat to frustrate gecko enthusiasts, disappearing straight down into the rock jumble on approach. However, the Gehyra soon took a back seat in importance as Scott yelled down the hill that he’d just seen an atra dissipate into the rocks. With a much greater sense of purpose, we spent the next few hours scouring the area for more. It soon became apparent that they were rather shy and, especially if you were not using a red filter like myself, incredibly difficult to approach within grabbing distance. I resigned myself to Gehyra duty while Scott managed to get his hands on two and Stephen a third, with another half dozen or more sightings. Nevertheless, we were ecstatic with our three, the first seen and photographed since the species description. Between the four of us we also easily managed to catch the ten necessary Small Pilbara Rock Gehyra (Gehyra micra), some more Pilbara Spotted Gehyra and found a lone Western Fat-tailed Gecko (Diplodactylus bilybara). As icing on the cake, our first Pygmy Python (Antaresia perthensis) had just made it out onto the road after we’d been in the troopy a mere 50 metres, prompting a necessary delay. Our final herp for the night was found after stopping for a spotlight in some clay grasslands, with a single Pilbara Stone Gecko (Diplodactylus mitchelli) found after a decent amount of effort. I was quite surprised by their large size and regret not photographing it, but after a very long night and it having a regen, I was not in the mood and we returned to Karratha for a well earned sleep in.
