absolute monster. We moved him out of harm’s
way, amazed that he hadn’t been hit by the
barrage of traffic that was in front of us. After
some wrong turns, courtesy of Dan’s phone, we
found ourselves in a small car park at the base of
an enormous granite hill. No real path was
apparent, so we began to scale rocks in order to
reach the top, which was no easy feat.
Tree Skinks (Egernia striolata) were abundant,
and became the most common herp of the trip.
Whilst I was photographing a juvenile, Dan
witnessed two males fighting. I regret not drop-
ping my camera to go see what was happening,
but I was happy with how the photos turned out.
The adults seemed to be very prolific, but were
usually heard instead of seen - darting into rock
Finally, I made it onto a relatively flat area close
to the summit, where I noticed a particularly
appealing acacia tree. Sure enough, I had soon
found a Southern Spiny-tailed Gecko! The lizard
had a minuscule, regenerated tail that had been
recently lost, but I was still over the moon! I
assumed that it had most likely been the victim of
a Tree Skink, as no small elapids had been
recorded on the mountain itself. Dan was nowhere
to be seen, so I began screaming at the top of my
lungs, “Dan, I found a ‘stroph’!”
After five minutes of constant yelling I began to
get worried. Had Dan been eaten alive by a mob
of hungry Tree Skinks? Attacked by a dropbear?
Horrible but unlikely scenarios swirled around in
my head, but soon Dan came into view at the
“Dan, I found a ‘stroph’!” The lizard had a miniscule, regenerated tail,
but I was still OVER THE MOON .
crevices and bushes when approached. We man-
aged to get pretty close to some adults, but it
proved extremely difficult to get any decent
pictures of them. Dan pointed up into a tree,
where he had spotted a very young Tree Skink
resting in the fork of