Okay, so I said I'd post pics a week ago, and I'm sorry for being late, but Jeff & Jen have been working me to the bone! LOL. 'Course I'm kidding, I think I took four days off this week!
Here are some pictures from Fiji and New Zealand. I'm going to post multiple threads so I can get more pictures in without people having to measure download times in days. I only spent two weeks in Fiji, and most of it was spent traveling around, seeing as much of Fiji as I could. The one day I allotted to finding Fiji iguanas and Pacific boas was the one day it decided to rain. Oh well.
This is my very first herp, and also my very first cane toad. Unfortunately they were introduced to Fiji as well as Australia, for the same reason, to control cane beetles, which, of course, they do not control. Other exotics wrecking havoc on Fiji include Indian myna birds (also introduced to NZ and Oz,) which were introduced to help a threatened tree species, which they actually damage, and mongooses (mongeese?) Mongoose - gooses - geese - whatever - are the only introduced species that do what they are meant to do. They were introduced to wipe out Fiji's super-abundant snakes, and have done a very good job. The snakes they virtually wiped out are the Pacific boas, small and harmless. Fiji does have a terrestrial elapid, but it is a small, shy, burrowing species that probably has weak venom and is harder to find than a black rat snake in Longpoint Provincial Park.
Sorry about the bad pic, I didn't realize the snake's head was hidden until I uploaded the photo from my camera to the computer. While walking a coral reef at low tide I came across two of these white-lipped sea kraits. They're the only snake I found in Fiji and are supposed to be everywhere. During the same reef walk the Fijian guy I was with killed a octopus which we brought back to his village. His sister cooked it up in coconut milk, and we ate it and drank kava until we fell asleep. Kava is not a drug, but definitely makes you happy and then sleepy. It has the appearance and taste of watered down mud.
Natadola (pronounced Natandola) beach, a typical Fijian picture.
A captive Fijian banded iguana at the Kula Echo Park on Viti Levu. I was surprised by how little a lot of the Fijians I encountered cared about Fiji's native wildlife, though I guess with the poverty there they can't afford to. The Kula Echo Park was one of the few places I found where conservation and captive breeding programs were in place. One thing they were breeding there was the rare Fijian ground frog, which seems to be able to live in mangroves and intertidal areas. Unfortunately the mongoose is butchering them.
A kiwi!!!!!!!!!! This is Mohua, a greater spotted kiwi, which is the largest type of kiwi still alive. Mohua was on his way to being released when he broke his beak in his box. Unfortunately he cannot feed himself and so must be hand fed every day. You'd think this'd make him human-complacent and therefore not releasable, but wrestling him from his hole once a day, pinning him down and shoving meat balls down his throat will probably make him even more terrified of humans than the average kiwi. This is also an experiment of sorts since nobody really knows if kiwis can regrow their beaks.
This is a goldstripe gecko. This little guy got me in a lot of trouble. The goldstripe is endangered, with only two populations known on two small offshore islands in New Zealand. I arranged to volunteer on one of those islands, and showed so much enthusiasm for finding these geckos (and the island's other endangered herp, the MacGregor's skink) that the island's lizard researcher suspected me of being a poacher and had me removed from the island. I was also banned from visiting other conservation areas and had to go to the Deparetment of Conservation head for the Wellington district and convince him I was not a poacher. A bell rung a cannot be unrung, however, and when I tried to leave New Zealand I was taken into custody, strip searched, my bags were inspected and my journals read.
Can you spot him? This little guy is a Gunther's tuatara. Only three small populations exist, this one on Matui/Somes Island. I was actually standing on the island's wharf when I was told I wasn't allowed on the property and had to take the boat back to Wellington and go to the DoC offices. I was allowed on the island the next day, which turned out to be for the better. It was a much better day for finding tuts!
This ugly customer is a weta, a sort of nocturnal grasshopper/cricket type thing. There are many different types of weta, this one being a tree weta. Wetas live in surprisingly complex social groups, but basically harems, with one male and several females. This is the male, with the huge head and even more huge piercing mouthparts. I think that makes him, technically, a bug.
Last but definitely not least, this is a northern tuatara. Once I finally convinced the DoC I (probably) wasn't a poacher, they allowed me to volunteer near Auckland where a uni student was studying the dispersal patterns of tuatara on an island without burrowing sea birds, which tuatara are normally associated with. This meant, basically, that we had to go out every night and find as many tuatara as possible. Not bad! We also saw a good number of kiwi and blue penguins. The penguins were the scariest thing to come across alone in the bush at night. They make the most terrifying sound and wrestle the bushes just like in Jurassic Park.
One night while doing the tuatara stuff we walked along a beach and noticed the water was glowing. Bio-luminescent plankton were so common on that one night that the water, especially went disturbed (by waves, splashing or running around) glowed a bright, neon blue. It was absolute incredible and I just wish I could have captured it on camera.
I hope you liked my pics and random little stories.
Dan
Linear Mode
