Queensland's Channel Country#1: landscapes and plants

I've mentioned here before my love affair with south-west Queensland, a vast and varied area which is somehow noticeably 'different' from adjacent NSW and South Australia. An important reason for this is that a large part of it forms the bulk of the bioregion known as the Channel Country for the complex network of braided flood channels that cover the area of some 200,000 square kilometres. All these channels flow away from the sea, mostly ending in waterways such as Cooper Creek, and the Diamantina, Georgina, Thompson, Barcoo and Warburton Rivers, which ultimately flow (occasionally!) as far as Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre in South Australia. Waterholes may be deep and almost permanent in streamlines, or ephemeral after rains.

We can really only get a sense of the complex tapestry of the channel pattern from above; here is an aerial photograph, courtesy of Wikipedia.

 However it's only down on the ground that we can get the detail of the tapestry.

Little Black Cormorants Phalacrocorax sulcirostris massing at Cooper Creek near Windorah.

Early morning on the Barcoo River in Welford National Park.
Here, and in subsequent photos in this series, the dominant waterside
trees are River Red Gums Eucalyptus camaldulensis.

Waterhole on Morney Creek, west of Windorah.

Ephemeral waterholes in the inter-dune swales west of Windorah.

Frances Waterhole, Welford NP.

Sawyer Creek, Welford NP.

Channel Country bioregion, map courtesy Wikipedia. This post focuses on the
Queensland portion of the bioregion, which accounts for most of it.

As in many previous such posts I've got enough material for two posts, so shall do that again rather than turn this post into a marathon. So today some landscapes and plants, next time some animals.

We've looked at some water features - rivers, creeks and waterholes - that are probably the essence of the Channel Country, but there is a true wealth of landscapes in between them. I've already mentioned the River Red Gums that are quintessential to the waterways, and here are a couple of other important Channel Country habitats - arid and semi-arid woodlands, dominated by a few more key tree species, and grassy plains.

Mulga Acacia aneura east of Windorah. This habitat covers some 25% of arid Australia.

Mulga flowers; the long thin phyllodes may vary, but the flower spikes are
distinctive (though not unique to Mulga.)

Gidgee Acacia cambegei and Coolabah Eucalyptus coolabah, growing near Morney Creek,
a hundred or so kilometres west of Windorah.

Gidgee is a favourite of mine, though one of its other names is Stinking Gidgee, suggesting that others are not so keen. It does have a strong odour, especially after rain, but to me it's like vegetable compost and not especially unpleasant. I've camped near many a Gidgee stand, and it's also perhaps the best firewood I know - it's dense and burns hot and slowly, so we use very little in an evening. It tends to grow in dips where water occasionally collects, and near watercourses where it gets overflow water from time to time. Coolabah, which appears often in Australian folklore and song (though I suspect that most of us wouldn't recognise it), has similar requirements, growing by occasionally wet watercourses and out on mostly dry floodplains. 

Flowering Gidgee, Morney Creek.

And just because I can, here are a couple more photos of these trees, River Red Gums at dawn and Gidgee in the evening, at the same site at Morney Creek.

There are also swathes of grassy plains, especially to the west.

Mitchell Grass plains Astrebla spp., Welford NP. There are only four
Mitchell Grass species but between they cover a huge area of cracking clay
plains across dry Australia.

Spinifex Triodia spp., near Farrans Creek 150k west of Windorah.
By contrast with the Mitchell grasses, spinifex grows on sand,
both plains and dunes.

Such dunes can be found rising from the plains in many parts of the Channel Country (and beyond of course) and can be rich red where there is iron present or paler, yellow to almost white.

Morning dune still covered in tracks, west of Windorah.

Vegetated dune (in fact nearly all them are) near Farrans Creek.

Which seems to provide a segue to introduce some other interesting and attractive plants of the Channel Country, though obviously it will be a very random and limited selection! There are no natural barriers between the Channel Country's habitats and the surrounding deserts and arid woodlands, so many of these plants grow widely across arid Australia. Some other trees first.

Ghost Gum Corymbia aparrerinja, west of Windorah.
(Though there is a chance that this is actually Dallachy's Ghost Gum C. dallachiana.
The Atlas of Living Australia suggests that this would be too far south-west,
but the nearby Welford NP Management Plan lists C. dallachiana
as the ghost gum there. I should have looked properly!)

Desert Bloodwood Corymbia terminalis east of Windorah.

Emu Apple Owenia acidula Family Melicaceae, east of Windorah.
In the same family as Red Cedar, this small tree adapted long ago
to a drying Australia and let the rainforests retreat without it. The fruit
is apparently edible, though I've also heard that it's hallucinogenic,
so won't be trying it any time soon. It is found widely in drier
Queensland and Central Australia.

Lolly Bush Clerodendrum floribundum Family Lamiaceae. The 'lolly'
name is for its looks, not edibility. This small tree has a surprising
distribution, growing at the edge of rainforest on the east coast,
and right across the dry tropics. This one was on the edge of a dune
in a sandplain in Welford NP.

Lots of shrubs of course.

Sandhill Wattle Acacia ligulata, Farrans Creek. Found throughout the Channel Country
and indeed most of dry Australia.

Desert Rattlepod Crotalaria eremaea, on a red dune east of Windorah.
This pea shrub is always found on sand, especially dunes, throughout Central
Australia, south-east to the Channel Country.

Green Birdflower Crotalaria cunninghamii, another in this genus, also
closely associated with dunes and sandy deserts. It's one of the most
strikingly unexpected flowers I know.

And another spectacular dune-dweller, Sandhill Grevillea G. stenobotrya,
Welford NP. Found from the Channel Country to the Indian Ocean.

And one of my very favourite Australian plant groups, up there with orchids and banksias, the eremophilas (ie the 'desert lovers') are found in various habitats in the Channel Country and well beyond it. The common names often include emu-bush (for a mistaken belief that their seeds rely on passing through an Emu's digestive tract to germinate) and turkey-bush (probably a reference to bustards, which were often referred to as 'Plains (etc) Turkeys', and possibly for the same reason as 'emu-bush').

Bignonia Emu-bush Eremophila bignoniiflora, west of Windorah. It grows
throughout the Channel Country along water courses and on flood plains.

Harlequin Bush Eremophila duttonii, Welford NP. Very striking when in flower,
found on sandy soils throughout central and south-eastern arid Australia,
and scattered in the Channel Country.

Crimson Turkey-bush Eremophila latrobei, west of Windorah.
Very widespread in inland Australia and a very beautiful flower.

A yellow form of Spotted Emubush Eremophila maculata, east of Windorah.
The species grows across most of the continent, and can have flowers that range from pink
through to red, as well as yellow and even mauve (though I've not seen many of those).
Moreover they may or may not have darker spots in the tube. It is the basis of most
eremophila hybrids sold in nurseries. Below is a more typical red form.

Rose Cottonbush Gossypium australe, west of Windorah. In the hibiscus family,
this lovely shrub is also closely related to cotton and to the very similar
Sturt's Desert Rose G. sturtianum, the Northern Territory floral emblem.

And of course there are many herbs, including a large number of ephemerals that flower following the rains. Daisies feature heavily among these.

Tangled Burr Daisy Calotis erinacea near Windorah, above and below.
A very common and widespread desert burr daisy; see also in the
photo of the dune at Farrans Creek above.

Soft Billy Button Pycnosorus pleiocephalus, a plant of the south-eastern drylands,
here at Morney Creek close to its northern-most distribution.

Large White Sunray Rhodanthe floribunda, also at Morney Creek.

And finally examples of some more very attractive Channel Country herbs, albeit subtly so in some cases, from six different families. All these were growing in the Windorah area.

Flax-leaf Indigo Indigofera linifolia (Family Fabaceae) which is found in a range of habitats
across the deserts and into the tropics, as well well beyond into southern Asian and Africa.
(I don't know how carefully those far-flung populations have been compared; if not it may be
reasonable to suppose that more than one species is involved.)

Poison Morning-glory Ipomoea muelleri, (Family Convolvulaceae) also widespread
in central and northern Australia. The foliage and seeds are said to be toxic to stock,
though Indigenous people from the Kimberley are reported to eat the tubers.

Long Tails Ptilotus polystachyus (Family Amaranthaceae). This genus, widely
known as mulla mullas or pussy tails, is common and often forms extensive swathes
after rain, right across the arid lands.

Small-beard Fanflower Scaevola parvibarbata (Family Goodenicaceae)
is a herb of the eastern inland.

Lifesaver Burr Sida platycalyx (Family Malvaceae) is quaintly named for the shape
of the fruits, which form a torus when completely dry. This genus too is
widely found inland.

Nardoo Marsilea drummondii growing alongside Cooper Creek after flooding.
This herb grows in floodwaters and subsequent muds, the dormant spores having
being triggered by inundation. The spore-bearing bodies, the sporocarps, lie
dormant for decades if need be, awaiting the next flood.

Nardoo played a key role in one of the great Australian folkloric tales of heroic tragedy - the Victorian Exploring Expedition of 1860-61, better known as the Burke and Wills Expedition, which sought to find a route from Melbourne to the north coast. The tale has been told many times and you can easily find the details if you wish. However the essence for our purposes today is that it did end tragically - six of the seven remaining expedition members died on Cooper Creek in the Channel Country on the way back. It was not an inevitable tragedy though, it was very largely due to the ignorance, arrogance and intransigence of their leader, Robert O'Hara Burke.

 

While awaiting rescue on the Creek, the expedition used the abundant nardoo sporocarps as flour and ate lots of freshwater mussels and, we were always told, starved to death. It doesn’t make sense. The local Indigenous people ate both these items, and even showed the Europeans how to prepare them. And in that is the essential clue – because Burke of course could never conceive that a mere native could tell him anything of value.

To cut it short, they died amidst obvious plenty, not of starvation but of beriberi – the symptoms, of leg paralysis, extreme sensitivity to cold and breathlessness, are described perfectly by Wills in his journal. Beriberi is vitamin B1 (ie thiamine) deficiency. By coincidence both the mussels and nardoo spores contain thiaminase, an enzyme which destroys thiamine. Over time the locals had learnt this, doubtless painfully, and had worked out techniques to destroy the thiaminase. They roasted the mussels on the fire; Burke and co ate them raw. The Aboriginals made a watery paste with the nardoo spores - the water neutralises the enzyme - but the explorers made a dry flour with them. 

 

Ah well, perhaps a red herring in today's post, but hopefully of some interest. 

 

The Channel Country's story is much bigger than this one and it is grand and glorious country. If you didn't already know about it, I hope that I may have piqued some interest in you to consider planning a trip out there. Meantime I hope to see you again next time when I will introduce some of the animals of the Channel Country.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY: link here

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Magnificent Mallee: #3 some mallee animals

This posting concludes my series on the mallee, among my very favourite habitats, which began here if you missed the start. It isn't necessary to read that in order to appreciate this one, but a bit of background might help.

As with the plants, which I talked about in offering number two, some animals are true mallee specialists, and many more live in the mallee as part of a wider arid and semi-arid range. (In reference to birds the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage refers to these species as 'mallee dependents', ie they are 'dependent on mallee where it is present, but also utilise non-mallee woodland or shrubland habitat that intergrades with mallee vegetation'.) All the photos which follow were taken in mallee.

While we're mentioning birds we might as well start with them. Firstly a few specialists; I should admit that among these mallee specialists are three of the very few southern Australian terrestrial birds that I've not seen. And there's one mallee specialist that really needs to open the conversation. 

Mallee Fowls Leipoa ocellata, Dubbo Zoo. And it really pains me to have to use
a photo (and an old slide scan at that) of captive birds, but while I've seen wild
Mallee Fowl it's not been often, and never have I been able to lay camera on one.
I regard that as a major failure, but sadly it alo reflects how this extraordinary bird,
along with other mallee specialists, is struggling from habitat loss and feral
animal predation.

It was this bird, or rather the remarkable 1950s and 60s field research and surrounding publicity of Doctor Harry Frith of the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), that did more than most other things to spark a public interest in the mallee, and its need for conservation. I could write an entire blog post on this bird - and probably would if I had the photos to back it up! - but I'll try to be concise here, out of respect to the other animals which are waiting their turn.

Mallee Fowl are megapodes ('big feet'), a group of 12 ancient species from Australia and islands north, all but one - this one - being rainforest birds. The general pattern is that the male does all the work, collecting a mighty mound of forest litter to form a huge compost heap, into which a female, if impressed, lays her egg - and so, potentially, do other females. He manages the temperature precisely, using his tongue as a very accurate thermometer, adding or scraping away vegetation as required. The chicks hatch deep in the mound, have to dig their way unassisted to the surface and make their way in the world all alone. That's all very well in a rainforest, but the hot dry mallee is not where I'd choose to build an essential compost heap. However, as Australia dried out in millennia past, the ancestral Mallee Fowl adapted, rather than retreating to the coast with the wet forests. 

To help cope with the extra challenges they differ from all other megapodes in forming bonded pairs, but the male still does most of the heavy work. After the early winter rains he starts to dig out the sand to make a hole three metres across and a metre deep. Later in winter he begins to fill the hole with litter, bringing it in from up to 50 metres away and clearing the ground around. An egg chamber is dug in the litter and sand raked back over the top and fermentation begins.

Apparently abandoned mound in Wyperfeld NP, north-western Victoria; this was in
October and the cavity should have been full of fermenting vegetation by now.
The scale of the mound is clear though.

A truly historic photo, and it shows! Taken 50 years ago near Keith, south-eastern
South Australia. Look at the size of the sticks in the nest.

Now the female takes an interest and she's been saving her energy for this. Each egg weighs a bit more than 10% of her body weight and she lays from 15 to 30 of them - ie in all up to three times her body weight, an extraordinary energy investment. Meantime he is every morning opening the mound to let it cool a bit, then immediately replaces it all. By summer the fermentation has slowed and the sun maintains the temperature, so he only has to open it every few days. By autumn the fermentation has finished and all heating must come from the sun so mid-morning he spreads most of the sand to warm, and replaces it all as the hours pass. Finally he gets a month off, then the whole cycle starts again.

This wasn't as succinct as I'd hoped, but it's a big story. Time to move on however, with a couple more mallee specialists (and slightly better photos).

Male Regent Parrot Polytelis anthopeplus, Hattah-Kulkyne NP, north-west Victoria.
While this lovely endangered parrot breeds only in old River Red Gum hollows
along the River Murray in western Victoria and NSW, and adjacent SA,
it needs mallee within 20km for foraging for seeds.
(An isolated, though large, population in the south-west of WA
lives in open forests and woodlands.)

Chestnut Quail-thrush Cinclosoma castanotum, Wyperfeld NP. Quail-thrushes can be
pretty elusive, but this one was quite unconcerned by me early one morning. It is found
only in mallee, especially with a spinifex or shrubby understorey.
(I have to comment on the seriously weird common name. It was for a long time called
Chestnut-backed for the obvious reason, and from Gould's species name. Further this was
a useful distinguisher from the Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush. The fairly recent and
utterly regressive name change leaves me totally perplexed.)

The next few species are ones that I know mostly as mallee birds, but which also utilise other habitats.

Southern Scrub-robin Drymodes brunneopygia, Coorong NP, South Australia.
A mostly ground-living robin, one of the familiar calls of old mallee. I think of it
as a mallee bird, but it is also found in associated heathlands.

Chestnut-crowned Babbler Pomatostomus ruficeps western NSW.
I always find this babbler a difficult species to get close to, and
this one was no exception, though the diagnostic cap and wing bars
are clear enough. Mostly a mallee bird, but does also extend into
the dry Mulga Acacia aneura and Belah Casuarina cristata lands beyond.

Splendid Fairywren Malurus splendens, Hattah-Kulkyne NP.
Splendid indeed, though perhaps not a very helpful name. In eastern
Australia this lovely bird lives widely in mallee, and I expect to see it in almost
any mallee I'm in, but it is also found well to the north in the mulga.
In the south-west, in the absence of the Superb Fairywren, it lives in wetter habitats.

Grey-fronted Honeyeater Ptilotula plumula, Gawler Ranges NP, SA.
This is not a common honeyeater in the mallee, but can be found throughout
most of it (and is possibly mistaken for Yellow-plumed Honeyeater at times);
however it continues through dry country to the north and north-west coasts.

 

Yellow-plumed Honeyeater Ptilotula ornata, eating lerps on mallee,
Nundroo, western SA. Again this is one I think of as essentially a mallee
honeyeater - perhaps the dominant smaller honeyeater there - in
eastern Australia, but extends its habitat preferences in the west.

And I'll wrap up this gallery of mallee birds with some which, while widely found in the mallee, are also at home in other habitats, both in southern Australia and beyond. While there might seem to be a generous sprinkling of honeyeaters here, bear in mind that the honeyeaters comprise some 10% of all Australian bird species, and more than that if we only consider land-based species.

Brown-headed Honeyeater (Melithreptus brevirostris, Gluepot Mallee Reserve,
South Australian Riverlands. A member of a genus of short-billed insect-eating
honeyeaters, found throughout the mallee and in drier forests and woodlands beyond it.
(And more on this very significant Birds Australia mature mallee reserve here.)

Striped Honeyeater Plectorhyncha lanceolata, Gluepot (on one of the above-ground
water troughs, out of the reach of kangaroos and goats). One of my favourite honeyeaters,
no doubt because it's so strange, not really looking like a honeyeater at all. Another
straight-billed insect-eater, again found throughout the eastern mallee (east of
Eyre Peninsula) but also beyond in dry forests, plus a seemingly anomalous population
in eastern subtropical swamp forests. The only member of its genus.

Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater Acanthagenys rufogularis, another with no close
relatives, whose fluting calls provide a key part of the soundtrack throughout the mallee
and beyond pretty well anywhere west of the Great Dividing Range. I love
its pink bill, blue eyes and salmony throat.

 

White-eared Honeyeater Nesoptilotis leucotis, Gluepot. I grew up in South Australia
thinking of this as a quintessentially mallee bird, but when I came east I discovered
that it is equally at home in any eucalypt habitat, including up in the Snow Gums!

Pink Cockatoo Cacatua leadbeateri, Mutawintji NP, western NSW.
An exquisite, and sadly declining, cockatoo found throughout arid and
semi-arid woodlands, including the mallee.

Another truly exquisite parrot, a male Mulga Parrot Psephotellus varius, Wyperfeld NP,
equally at home in the mallee and other dry woodlands as it is in the mulga.

Australian Ringneck Barnardius zonarius, Gluepot. This one belongs to a
subspecies known as the Mallee Ringneck for the obvious reason, found
throughout the eastern mallee and further north in other arid woodlands.
It seems to fill the ecological niche of rosellas in these drier areas.

Male Purple-backed Fairywren Malurus assimilis, Dhilba Guuranda–Innes
National Park, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. It is found throughout most of the continent
in a series of subspecies, but in the mallee lands that is key habitat for it.

Rainbow Bee-eaters Merops ornatus, here in south-western NSW,
can turn up pretty well anywhere in southern Australia where they migrate
from the north to breed, but this one was in mallee, so why not?

Red-backed Kingfisher Todiramphus pyrrhopygius, is the Australian arid land
kingfisher, and is found throughout the mallee.

Male Red-capped Robin Petroica goodenovii, Cocoparra NP, near Griffith central western NSW.
This is another widespread inland bird which is also very much at home in the mallee.

White-browed Babblers Pomatostomus superciliosus, Flinders Rangers NP, SA.
The same habitat comments apply as for the previous species.

Mammals are of course an important part of the mallee, but most of them are small and nocturnal. A couple are more conspicuous though, none more so than the ubiquitous Western Grey Kangaroo Macropus fuliginosus, which is also known as the Mallee Kangaroo though it's certainly not limited to mallee. For a long time it was thought to be the same species as the Eastern Grey Kangaroo M. giganteus, until CSIRO scientists in Canberra noticed that the 'brown' kangaroos in an enclosure didn't interbreed with the 'grey' ones. They are found in much of drier southern Australia and originally didn't overlap much with the more moisture-dependent Eastern Greys. However in recent decades the Easterns have penetrated further and further inland, taking advantage of agricultural water supplies, to the apparent detriment of the Western Greys (my observation, I'm not sure that it's been studied).

Western Grey Kangaroos, Mungo National Park, south-western NSW.
Long ago a friend who'd spent his working life as an ecologist in the dry country
commented to me that the two Grey Kangaroos should be called Grey and
Brown Kangaroos respectively, and I've seen it like that ever since.

And another 'historic' photo I'm afraid (ie a poor scan of an old slide) though this one is barely 30 years old!

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats Lasiorhinus latifrons, Brookfield CP,
near Blanchetown, SA. One of three wombat species, a highly specialised
arid land dweller found only on limestone in mallee and saltbush shrubland
in limited areas centred on South Australia but extending a little way into
south-western NSW and far eastern WA, on the Nullarbor Plain.

They are very good at conserving water, and produce very dry faecal pellets. They also conserve energy via a very low resting metabolic rate. They are much more communal than Common Wombats, sharing burrows and living in a warren of connected burrows. Interestingly there is also a ring of single burrows 100 metres or so out from the warren, where young wombats live when ousted from the central warren. Year round the burrow temperature ranges between 14 and 26 degrees, while outside it can vary between two and 40+ degrees.

Of course there are tens of thousands of invertebrate species found in the mallee, many of them doubtless specialising in the habitat. However none of the small sample I've selected here are limited to the mallee, indeed all of them seem to be found widely. Butterflies and moths are of course ubiquitous, at least in the right conditions.

Bardi, or Rain Moth Abantiades atripalpis, one of the ghost moths in the
Family Hepialidae, Mungo NP. The genus is restricted to Australia, and this
species is found across the southern part of the country, including of course
the mallee. This one seemed to have recently emerged from its pupal case.

Bardi Moth pupal case by the burrow from which it has emerged, triggered
by the previous night's rains (hence the Rain Moth name)

Australian Painted Lady Vanessa kershawi, feeding on Poached Egg Daisy
Polycalymma stuartii in mallee in Hattah-Kulkyne NP. A very familiar
butterfly right across the southern half of Australia.

Satin-green Forester Pollanisus viridipulverulenta Yeldulknie CP,
Eyre Peninsula, SA. Found widely in south-eastern Australia,
the larvae feed mostly on Hibbertia spp.

Ants are truly ubiquitous in Australia; indeed it seems to be a world hot spot for the number of species here. Here are a couple of nests, though I can't tell you anything about them.

If I had to guess at these ants, in the Gawler Ranges NP, north of Eyre Peninsula, SA,
I would suggest Polyracchis sp, but I really don't know.

As for this strange structure at Gluepot, I'm only assuming it's an ant nest!
I'd not seen anything like it.

This one on the other hand I'm confident is a Colourful Burrowing Cockroach
Macropanesthia kraussiana; they too were out and about after the rain at
Mungo NP. The Atlas of Living Australia has only seven records for it,
two of them at Mungo and the rest scattered between there and south-east Queensland.
On the other hand Dave Rentz's Guide to the Cockroaches of Australia shows
it as occurring throughout Victoria and up the east coast, but not in NSW...

This Huntsman Spider in Wyperfeld NP had been temporarily disturbed from its
rather risky home in a metal 'envelope' with a hinged lid on a pole. The envelope
contains good information on the site, on a laminated sheet of paper. I assume that
this disturbance happens regularly and that the spider resumes its home when we've moved on.

Finally reptiles, and the mallee is particularly rich in them. In fact almost a quarter of all Autralia's reptile species are found there. The mallee-spinifex communities in particular contribute to this richness, with the dense spiny clumps of Triodia providing safe haven for not only reptiles, but numerous invertebrates, plus small mammals and birds as well.

Central Military Dragon Ctenophorus isolepis, Great Sandy Desert, eastern WA.
These dragons never ventured far from the spinifex clumps, and the feral cat
footprints everywhere in the sand explained their caution. They were the only
lizard we saw regularly and the spinifex, plus their lightning speed,
ensured their survival. This desert supported 'open' mallee, not as
dense as in less arid situations, but a mallee habitat nonetheless.

This dragon genus is common and diverse in mallee; here are a couple of other species of it.

Painted Dragon Ctenophorus pictus, Cape Bauer, western South Australia.
This colourful dragon is found throughout the eastern mallee lands and north
beyond them.

Eastern Mallee Dragon Ctenophorus spinodomus, Hattah-Kulkyne NP. Unlike the two
previous dragon species, this one is a true mallee specialist, and found in the
mallee-spinifex habitat eastward from the far east of South Austalia, but not outside of it.
Until 2019 it was included with Ctenophorus fordi, found in mallee lands to the west
of this one's range; C. fordi is now known as Mallee Military Dragon, though
the inclusion of 'Western' would seem logical!

Western, or Dwarf, Bearded Dragon Pogona minor, Lesueur NP, south-western WA.
Though it is found throughout much of WA, it is very much at home in the mallee, as here.

And the other major Australian lizard groups are also represented here.

Leopard Skink Ctenotus pantherinus, just alongside its sheltering spinifex clump,
in Sharp-capped Mallee Eucalyptus oxymitra habitat in a harsh gravel landscape
near the start of the Ormiston Pound walk in Tjoritja/Western MacDonnells NP.
They live largely on termites, which are also largely dependent on the spinifex.

Boulenger's Skink Morethia boulengeri, Gluepot Reserve. Clearly any animal living
in Gluepot lives in mallee, but this skink is also found across most of arid
and semi-arid Autralia.

Shingleback (or Sleepy Lizard as I grew up calling them) Tiliqua rugosa,
south of Broken Hill. It's a skink, though the similarity between this and
the more typical skink above is not at all obvious. It is very common
in mallee, but is found in semi-arid areas from the Indian Ocean to
Canberra and north into central Queensland. It's also one of my
favourite lizards...

Eastern Tree Dtella Gehyra versicolor, peeping out from its home in one of the toilet
blocks at Gluepot Reserve. Here it is certainly deep within the mallee but it is
also found in other semi-arid habitats throughout much of eastern Australia.

Sand Goanna Varanus gouldii, lower Darling River, NSW. It is typical
of many goannas that they stand erect to examine their surrounds.
Another species which is at home in the mallee but is not confined to it.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed meeting - or reacquainting yourself with - some of the wonderful wildlife of the wonderful mallee. I've certainly enjoyed putting it together. Thanks for joining me.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 19 DECEMBER

I love to receive your comments and in future will be notifying you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. All current subscribers have been added to this mailing list and have already been contacted. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it.
Should you wish to be added to it, just send me an email at calochilus51@internode.on.net. You can ask to be removed from the list at any time,or could simply mark an email as Spam, so you won't see future ones.
If you do leave a comment - and I love it when you do - please remember to click the
box below your comment that says 'Email follow-up comments to...[your address]'
so you'll know when I reply - and I always do!