see this species is to let it come to you! It was interesting
to observe how much these lizards communicate with
each other, and how they use their long limbs to swiftly
negotiate the boulders. They are definitely well adapted
to their environment.
That night we set out in search of the frog and the gecko.
We saw a lot of geckos, but just not the species we were
looking for! As we were leaving, we spotted a round, yel-
low object in a small puddle of rainwater. It was the Black
Mountain Boulder Frog. You would think that a bright
yellow frog would stand out in the black boulder forma-
tions, but sitting there in the puddle it just looked like a
leaf. On the way out, we noticed a Carpet Python
(Morelia spilota) coiled in some grass. This was one of the
nicest Carpet Pythons I’ve ever seen - it was good to see repairing his ship, the Endeavour, in 1770. During this
so much wildlife in one area.
time, botanist Joseph Banks collected specimens of more
than 200 previously unknown species of plants. Cook’s
Later, on the way to Cooktown, we spotted a Frilled
stopover was also notable for including the first recorded
Lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii) sitting on the side of a tree sighting of a kangaroo by Europeans. We spent a few
grabbing some early morning rays before it became too
nights around Cooktown searching for herps, and
hot! Once again, she tried the familiar tactic of swivelling managed to find a variety of species including Northern
around the trunk so we couldn’t see her. She was very
Death Adders (Acanthophis praelongus) and Macleay’s
dark and obviously stressed because she was also heavily Water Snakes (Pseudoferania polylepis).
gravid, so we just took a couple of pictures and left her
alone.
I’ll definitely be going back to Far North Queensland at
some stage – hopefully with more than a week to spend
Finally, we made it to Cooktown, 328 kilometres north of herping!
Cairns. James Cook spent seven weeks in the area
3.