The Gecko on the Hill,
and a ‘Snake’ in the Grass.
Recently, my mate Dan Mangano and I headed up
to north-central Victoria for a day trip, in an
attempt to locate some Mallee species that have
unusual distributions that encroach into central
Victoria. Our main target would be the Southern
Spiny-tailed Gecko (Strophurus intermedius), a
species that is quite common in the Mallee region,
but that also has a rather curious population on a
large granite outcrop near Pyramid Hill, 200km
from any real, arid, Mallee-like habitat. To a lesser
extent, I also wanted to see a Curl Snake (Suta
suta), a small elapid species that exists in some
grasslands around central and northern Victoria. I
heaved myself out of bed on a sunny Sunday
morning, observing with some satisfaction that
there was not a cloud was in the sky. Although the
temperature would not exceed 20 degrees Celsius
for the whole day, the sun was enough to bring
out the species we wanted to see.
We jumped into the car and drove north for about
three hours, only stopping to buy snacks at
Rochester. The new version of the chocolate
‘Yowie’ proved to be very disappointing, and I
should have listened to Dan’s warning and not
bought one! After about half an hour of driving
past canola plantations, we began cruising
through some cypress woodland. How strange. I
lost focus on the road, and began dreaming of
finding my first spiny-tailed gecko. Not a second
later, Dan slammed on the brakes, pulled the car
to the side of the gravel road and jumped out in a
sprint. I fell out of the passenger’s-side door,
‘trying desperately to spur my legs into action and
grab my pack simultaneously. It turned out that
Dan had spotted a nice Eastern Bearded Dragon
(Pogona barbata) trying to cross the road. After a
quick photo session we let him on his way. A quick
check of Google Maps revealed that we were in
the midst of Terrick Terrick National Park, which
explained the cypress woodland.
We continued on and began to near our destina-
tion, with an increase of cars becoming apparent
on the road. On the top of a hill we spotted
another bearded dragon; this one being an
‘The Southern Spiny-tailed Gecko has a rather
curious population on a large granite outcrop
near Pyramid Hill.’
All images by Nicholas Gale