Moths of Outback Australia

Recently when I traveled through Australias outback wetlands, each night I would leave one light on as it got dark for a few hours and take photos of the insects that were drawn to to the light. Below are a few of them. They are taken with a canon G12, if you play around with the settings, really fast exposure, and dim the flash to its lowest light settings many little cameras with macro settings can take this type of photos. I havnt identified any if them yet, there are many, many more familes of moths than butterflies so it makes it much harder.
There are so many different species of moths that we really dont know the full lifecycle of many of them. One intersting thing is that some caterpillars eat leaf litter and there may be so many of the species that do this that they keep the leaf litter down to a minimum. However it is thought that the times we do some of our control burns might be the time when these caterpillars are active so we kill them off if we keep burning off the same areas every year. We may be making it so that leaf litter builds up more than it would if we had left it alone. Control burns have always been carried out in this country by aboriginal people, but we dont necessarily do it at the same times as they use to. It is for reasons like this that we need to know as much as we can about the creatures around us.

Aside from that I love moths, they have so many differnt patterns and shapes, there are some that are much brighter than these ones here.
Many of them are pollinators that visit white flowers, and those that have a strong smell at night. Most are active at night but there are day flying moths as well.

Diamantina NP, Qld.

Coopers Creek, Windora, Qld

Mt Isa, Qld.

Elsey NP, NT.

Walkers Creek, Karumba, Qld.

Walkers Creek, Karumba, Qld.

Mt Isa, Qld.

Coopers Creek, Windora, Qld

Coopers Creek, Windora, Qld.

Sturt NP, NSW. I often see this moth during daylight visiting flowers. Its rear wings(hidden) are a beautiful lilac blue. I have seen it many places in Australia. Its about 2cm long, an inch.

Elsey NP, NT.

Innamincka, SA. I love the shape of the wings of this species. I would love to know why they fold like that.

The little green moth was at Diamantina NP, Qld.

Walkers Creek, Karumba, Qld. Family Arctiidae. This is a tiger moth. the bright colourings are warnings of its poisonous nature. It is thought to deter bats.

Plume moth, Mt Isa, Qld. This moth is max 2 cm wide. Their wings are very feather like....hence the name.

If you would like to find out more about the moths that eat leaf litter you can read about it in a guide to moths of asutralia
Paul Zborowski And Ted Edwards
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing Released: 18 May 2007 ISBN: 9780643099043

Reptiles Outback Australia Aug2011

The photos in this post were taken in a few different places. The lizard above is a Central Bearded Dragon, taken at Innaimcka which is in the NE corner of SA. The very black chin or beard area shows that this is a fully mature lizard.

Central Bearded Dragon, Innamincka SA.

I found this goanna near the Cooper Creek at Innamincka as well. It is a Sand Goanna. Identifying feature of this goanna is the yellow tip on its tail. The next two photos are of the same species.

The next few photos are of an Olive python just after it has had a feed. This was a very long and thick bodied snake. They are common in tropical wetlands of Australia. This snake was near Mt Isa in Qld, in a flooded area.

The bulge is its last meal, it looked about the size of a rabbit.

It left to swim in the water as the temperature began to soar.

Esturine Crocodile, Corroboree Billabong. These crocs are maneaters, given the chance. (also called saltwater crocs - or saltys, and they are found in the sea,  but this is a misnomer as they are equally happy and common in freshwater).   Full grown ones are huge. Mature males can be 6m in lenght and wiegh a thousand pounds or over 400kg. They have over 60 teeth and unlike us as they lose one, another one grows! They dont chew their food, the teeth are for grabing and tearing. Their teeth are conical shaped. The skin on their back has bony plates in it and is aparantly almost impossible to pierce.

The next shots are of  freshwater crocs, which aren't considered particularly dangerous to people. The difference between the two that is readily visible is that the freshwater crocs have a much narrower snout. Im pretty sure that the folowing pictures are freshwater crocodiles. These photos were taken at a waterhole called Corroborre Billabong, situated on the boundry of Kakadu NP, NT. All of these crocodile pictures were taken from the safety of a boat.

This a dragon lizard, a common species in the NT. They can run very fast if startled. They also have a habit that is fun to watch. They wave with one of their front legs, it has a nickname of the tata lizard. This one was at Nitmiluk NP, near Katherine,NT. The common name for this dragon is Gilbert's Dragon.

The dragon below was taken at Lorella Springs, NT. on a dry rocky stream bed. It had very pretty markings. It is a Ring-tailed Dragon.

The next shot is a pair of mature Gilbert's Dragons fighting. It was very quick and it was a bit like wrestling in that once the winner had pinned the shoulders of its rival to the ground, it was all over. It released the loser which ran away as soon as it was able.

These photos are of a Merten's Water Monitor. While some of the other monitor lizard numbers are declining due to eating the poisonous cane toads, water monitors seem to not have included them in their diets. It has been suggested that it is because they hunt in water and feed on the frogs, insects and crustaceans they find instead.