Day off

No, I'm perfectly comfortable. Why do you ask?

Back tomorrow.

Jottings from the Tropics: 6 February 2012

The tree kangaroos are being secretive. I know they are around because the leaves are rustling — as in shaking, not as in stealing cattle — and I catch glimpses of bell rope tails as the roos move along branches. Although it is great to see them, especially when they hop up to the house or climb in the garden, I am happy just to know they are here.

- o O o -

Little Poss licked my hand yesterday. The last marsupial to do that was a pademelon, who followed it up with an exploratory bite. Even a gentle nibble from those incisors can hurt. That’s when I confirmed that a) paddies locate food by scent and b) the smell of oranges is stronger than the smell of humans. If Little Poss returns tomorrow with pepper and sage, I’m bolting the door.

- o O o -

This afternoon I engaged in a surgical strike on the column of stinging tree saplings marching up the driveway. I scalded my foot while pouring boiling water over them, but it was still not as painful as brushing against a leaf. I have one more to deal with, but that can wait until tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t call in reinforcements overnight.

- o O o -

I probably need to get out more.

Monarch of the rainforest

We get two kinds of monarchs here — country and we pied (Arses kaupi) and black-faced (Monarcha melanopsis). Actually, we get three, but that would have finished off an already ailing joke. The third species is the spectacled monarch (M. trivirgatus).

Of the three, the black-faced monarch is the species I see most often. The birds appear late in the afternoon, just as the light is going, so getting a photo — even a 'soft' one like this — is a matter of luck. They are active birds, constantly moving through the vegetation in search of insects. Occasionally, they stop to mob spotted catbirds.

Black-faced monarchs are migratory across a large part of their range, arriving in September and leaving in March. At least part of the population on the Atherton Tablelands is resident. They must like the cold weather.

Tyto Tony has photos of the other two species from Jourama Falls, south of Ingham, where it is balmy all year around.

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Sadly, the generic name of the pied monarch still fills me with mirth.

Jottings from the Tropics: 5 February 2012

Sometimes I feel guilty chuckling at Little Poss when he falls off the window sill. But I get over it. I am sure he will have the last laugh when he finally breaks in and ransacks the kitchen while I'm away. All that scrambling up and down the flyscreen is reconnaissance for the main operation.

He was sitting on top of the upturned broom last night, doing his death stare into the garden. Although it is quite difficult to distinguish his death stare from his winsome expression from his normal face, he was definitely perturbed about something. I followed his line of sight to a furry smudge in the gloom. Little Poss, terroriser of wildlife, was upset by Pip, bane of brush turkeys. I think he must have realised that she could not see him — pademelons have poor eyesight —so he climbed down the broom and (sigh) peed on the patio. I wish they’d take their disputes elsewhere.

- o O o -

When I go into the carport on rainy nights, I have to remember to look up. Leeches — often very big ones — crawl up to the ceiling, where they wait to drop on warm-blooded prey. In the Wet Season, the carport is like an Aliens theme park. Fortunately, leeches are easily thwarted by not walking directly underneath them. Also, there are no service ducts running between the carport and the house, which restricts their activities. Still, I have been known to amuse myself by doing Bill Paxton impersonations. Little Poss is not impressed. He does not recognise talent.

- o O o -

Someone has plonked a tent and a couple of cattle on a cleared block up the road. I like to think that the someone is a retired drover who is trying to recreate his former life on a very tight budget. Or school kids doing a low cost version of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia. If Bowen can pass for Darwin, then a treeless block on the Atherton Tablelands can pass for Kununurra.

- o O o -

Tropical Cyclone Jasmine is tracking ESE and is no longer affecting the FNQ coast. This is good news* because, once again, I have consumed the best bits out of my cyclone supplies. I really should hide the box under a stack of paperwork or my ‘to do’ list, where I will never find it. Or buy baked beans and hard tack.

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* Although not for New Caledonia and Vanuatu.

Ston(e)y Creek frogs revisited

‘Went out spotlighting in the garden last night. Saw some Litoria jungguy.’

‘How do you know?’

‘?’

‘They’re impossible to tell apart from wilcoxii. ‘

‘This map here shows only L. jungguy in this area.’

‘But how do you know that you’ve got jungguy?’

‘I don’t care.’

‘And you call yourself a taxonomist...’

What was known as Lesueur’s frog (Litoria lesueuri Dumeril and Bibron, 1841) was long suspected to have actually been a group of species. No one was sure exactly how many species made up this anuran Legion, because they were impossible to tell apart just on appearance alone. In 2004, Steve Donnellan and Michael Mahony took a closer look at the frogs. Using allozyme electrophoresis and karyotype analysis, they cracked this conundrum.

Lesueur’s frog as-was had a wide distribution along the east coast from Far North Queensland to eastern Victoria and occurred in a range of habitats from sea level to mountain top (where mountains are less than 1200 m). Donnellan and Mahony identified three distinct species — yer genuine Litoria lesueuri from Victoria and southern NSW, Litoria wilcoxii Gunther, 1864, from southern NSW to Far North Queensland, and an undescribed Far North + mid-east Queensland species that they named Litoria jungguy. To confuse things more, both L. wilcoxii and L. jungguy are known as the Stoney Creek frog.

The ranges of the two Stoney Creek frogs overlap, but populations appear to be separated by habitat. Litoria junguuy seems to prefer rainforest, whereas L. wilcoxii lives in sclerophyll (eucalypt) forest. But the two species are also known to hybridise, which would suggest that they are not completely isolated by their specific habitat requirements. We all know what frogs are like*.

I plotted the distributions using data from NQ and FNQ in Donnellan and Mahony (2004). (Their map is difficult to read on screen.) According to their records, the two species have reasonably discrete core ranges. Hybridisation in this area only occurs along the western edge of the Atherton Tablelands, where rainforest gives way to wet sclerophyll forest. Interestingly, it does not appear to be an inevitable consequence of populations meeting, because no hybrids were found at Granite Creek (white spot). This might reflect the actual situation or be a function of sample size. Needs moar material.

L. wilcoxii = yellow
L. jungguy = blue
hybrids = green
co-occurence = white

So, on the basis of this, I am not at all confident that the Stoney Creek frogs at my place are Litoria jungguy Donnellan and Mahony, 2004, karyoptype analysis or not. I'm hoping that someone will revisit these species with a DNA lab and a few more specimens. I'll lay a very small amount of money on the mid east Queensland population being a different species altogether.

(If this work has already been done and I've overlooked it, let me know. It won't be the first time.)

Reference
Donnellan, S. C. and Mahony, M.J. (2004). Allozyme, chromosomal and morphological variability in the Litoria lesueuri species group (Anura: Hylidae), including a description of a new species. Australian Journal of Zoology 52: 1 - 28.

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* Rabbits.