Eggs lost :-(



Bell's form Lace Monitor (goanna) raiding a woma burrow



11 Jan 2011:  Well it looks like the crystal ball is out of whack – after all our predictions and all the time she spent with the boys, Katie hasn’t produced eggs this year.  But we do have womas Lola and Winnie incubating eggs!  That was until today anyway.  As far as we know Lola is still on eggs, but woma Winnie just had her burrow raided by a big adult lace monitor.  We’re not sure if she was unable to defend the nest (unlikely) or if she abandoned the eggs.  We have a few pieces of evidence though – 1. Motion sensor camera images of the goanna digging into the burrow and eating a woma-sized egg, and 2. Winnie moved from her incubating burrow for the first time in months either before or after the goanna raided the burrow.

We are confident Woma Lola is incubating because we sighted her with a distended posterior end in late November (she was so swollen I could see a bulge from her transmitter!) and four days later she was sighted basking again but she was no longer swollen!  So we are fairly confident of her laying date, which was about 60 days ago.  That means her eggs are pretty much due to hatch any day now!



Woma Big Bobby, one of several times he crossed a public road



We have some sad news I’m afraid - unfortunately woma Big Bobby was found dead late last week.  He was a very old snake – we could tell this by the big knobbly scales around his eyes, his dark colouration, and his big size (>210cm snout-vent length) – and he spent some time being nursed at the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital in winter this year after suffering concerning weight loss.  With care, he returned to his original weight and we were relieved to find that he was able to hunt and eat after being released (see previous blogs).  We felt he would probably survive the summer but unfortunately it was not to be.  For the last ten days or so he decided to hang out next to a public road where there was the danger of being hit by a car and very few ground burrows where he could escape the intense summer heat (up to 40^oC).  We are not sure what happened to him but we are blessed that he was able to share his final months with us and help us learn more about woma habitats and habits so we are better equipped to ensure the long term survival of the Brigalow woma python. 



Woma Ella 5m up a mulga tree, stalking
a sleeping bearded dragon!



On a brighter note, the tracking has been very eventful of late!  We had a very cold and wet December here so the womas slowed down for a while and didn’t get out very much at night.  However with the weather warming (and drying) up recently, there have been another two sightings of womas up trees!  The first one was woma Ella, who was 5m high in a big old mulga tree, chasing a sleeping bearded dragon.  Not even an hour later I found Katie descending a small false sandalwood tree!  It was a very warm night so the dragons were sleeping out on the tree limbs and the womas were making the most of it!



New woma Jade - a lucky find!



That same warm night I was lucky enough to stumble across a new woma python.  She is a big, beautiful, calm python (1.85m SVL, 3.3kg) and I found her by sheer luck!  It was dark and I was tracking woma Maxi through some thick regrowth mulga when I came to a big pile of logs that had been raked up when the mulga was cleared many years ago for sheep or cattle grazing.  This log pile extends for hundreds of metres in either direction and I have to climb over it to get to Maxi in his current position.  As I was contemplating the best route I noticed a yellow head poking out of a hollow log in the pile – yep she’d just popped her head out and started to taste the entry for chemical scents.  After a little gentle persuasion I managed to extract her from the hollow log and pop her in a bag so I could ID tag and measure her at the quarters before returning her to her home.  What a beautiful snake!

Well there certainly is a correlation between warm weather and interesting woma activity!  With summer only half over there is sure to be more interesting news to come.  Stay tuned!