[moloch]

Last Friday was Australia Day, a public holiday. I used a couple of days of leave and drove for 14 hours up to a herp camp at the base of the Lamington Plateau. This area is situated about two hours southwest of Brisbane. I think that Lamington National Park is one of the prettiest in Australia with excellent sub-tropical rainforest. If any of you head over here, I would highly recommend a visit to this area.

While at the camp, we went on night walks on the plateau. Leaf-tailed Geckos (Saltuarius swaini) were common in the forest. I was really pleased to see these beautiful geckos for the first time.

Here are a few habitat shots.

Antarctic Beech Tree (Nothofagus sp.)




A strangler fig. This species of tree seemed to be a favourite haunt of the gecko.



Leaf-tails were wonderfully camouflaged when on the trunk of a strangler fig.







Others were seen on rocks.











This one had a regen'ed tail. It was beneath a house.



One gecko was carrying a number of mites.

[vierfleck]

Hello,

everytime time i see your pics,just want to pack my things to go there.It´s absolutely amazing

regards

Matthias

[Minhawali]

Very nice, David, as usual.

Cheers,
Johan

[onemayonaise]

i love your posts!!!

[Strophurus]

hello, great pictures of a great gecko.
thanks for sharing them.
regards stefan

[geckodan]

What do you mean by a "herp camp".???

[moloch]

Hello Danny,

It was a gathering of a few participants from the Aussie Reptile Keepers ("ARK") forum. I drove up from Wollongong and one guy flew down from Rockhampton. All of the others were from Brisbane or Noosa. I think that this is an annual event although the location varies from year to year.

Regards,
David

[saltuarius]

Thank´s David,i like very much your post.

Best regards,
Roberto.

[eipper]

David,

It was fun showing you your first swaini.....I told you toilet blocks are a good place to start.

And your face was worth a pic with amount of excitment you had, when I handed you that gecko lol.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Scott

[MiCh@3L]

Great as always!

Thanks for this great gecko impression, David!

cheers,
Michael