More woma pythons up trees and digging burrows!

27-11-11: Wow, the womas are really moving!  November has been particularly hot and dry and the womas seem to be making the most of these conditions to feed up.  Some have been moving over 1.5km in between tracking sessions!



Woma DC 5m up a poplar box tree!



Last blog I mentioned that we found a woma 3m up a tree.  Well now I’ve also found a woma (DC) resting 5m up a smooth and straight poplar box tree!  Not only that, the next time I saw him (1 week later) he was up a small false sandalwood shrub stalking a sleeping bearded dragon!  I think there’s no doubt now that the womas are taking advantage of the reptiles that sleep out in the tree branches on hot nights.



And it gets better!  Woma Ella (the smallest woma I am tracking) has been eluding me for 6 months but I found her out just the other night.  And she was 2m up a dead tree – stalking a medium-sized sand goanna!  Luckily Australia Zoo croc keeper Richie Jackson and USA Matt were helping me track that night and were able to give me a leg up to catch her just before she disappeared into a hollow section of the tree.  I really wanted to watch Ellas attempt to catch and eat the sandy but because I hadn’t seen her since she was released, I really needed to check her stitches and make sure she was ok.  Luckily I did because she needed a quick trip to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital to fix up a slightly protruding antenna.



Woma Humphrey digging a burrow!



 There’s still more woma news!  Just last week I found new woma Humphrey digging a burrow!  Ok, so this isn’t really that unusual for womas – they dig burrows in sand in captivity all the time.  But here in the Brigalow Belt, the soil is very cloggy clay and difficult to dig so we were unsure if the womas would show this behaviour.  It’s great to be able to confirm this activity!  Woma Humphrey is certainly an interesting woma – he was the first to show us that womas climb; the first to demonstrate catching, killing and eating a bearded dragon (and up a tree at that!); the first to demonstrate burrow digging in the Brigalow woma population; and the first to be photographed coiled up inside a ground burrow (see picture).  What’s next for Humphrey...?



Woma humphrey coiled up 1m down a
ground burrow system



It’s just about egg-laying time for the womas and I’m tracking 3 f emales that are definitely breeding size and have been with tracked males over the breeding season so it will be interesting to see if they settle for the next few months – womas coil around their eggs to incubate them.  In fact Winnie and Lola have just moved into the same burrow system – a communal nesting site?  Woma Katie (who we are confident will breed this year) is still active but I saw her out the other night and she is very solid!  Woma Gaillee may also lay eggs because she spent a lot of time with woma James earlier this year.

The hot weather has only just begun and the womas have already shown us some very interesting behaviours and movements.  Be sure to stay tuned over the summer – I’m sure there is much more to come!