Ant antics
Green-head Ant
Recently, an ant struggling with an insect corpse across our brick pavers caught our attention. We stopped to watch the activity around the nearby ant-hole, where some ants were busily excavating, while others appeared to be building a stockpile of leaves and stalks.
When we checked with Max Campbell, our invertebrate expert who gave a Focus on Fauna presentation earlier this year, he advised us that these are Green-head Ants (Rhytidoponera metallica). Max said “… the carcase is a crane fly (family Tipulidae) and was more likely to be carrion than prey. All food is used by the ant community for both adults and larvae. It is likely that most proteinaceous food (meat as it were) gets used for feeding developing young, whereas the adults would need high energy food such as nectar and other carbohydrates to maintain their active existence.”
Another interesting fact from Max is that this species of ant often has inquilines, such as specialised isopods or a type of cricket, sharing the nest with them. Inquilines are named from the Latin inquilinus meaning ‘lodger’or ‘tenant’, and are described as living commensally, which means that one of the co-inhabitants benefits from the arrangement, without affecting the other.
The ant’s colouring can vary – some from eastern Victoria are more obviously green headed and brilliantly metallic, as seen in Max’s photo.
[Click on any of the photos and then scroll through the gallery using the arrows.]
-
- Excavation
-
- Carrion collection – pulling …
-
- … and pushing
-
- Nearing the nest …
-
- … almost there …
-
- … down the hole
-
- Collecting leaves – for what?
-
- Vegetation stockpile
-
- Clearly a Green-head Ant!
Here’s to the Long-necks
When I was young a ‘long-neck’ referred to one of the larger bottles of beer that you could buy. These days now that I am more eco-savvy it refers to a type of turtle.
The Eastern Long-necked Turtle (Chelodina longicollis) is found throughout south-eastern Australia. It feeds on insects, worms, frogs, fish and crustaceans. It is sometimes known as a 
Stinker because if disturbed it will emit an offensive odour from musk glands. I never get that close to them to find out. In our dam they float with only their nostrils and eyes above the water level (pictured above) and soon disappear below the surface if disturbed.
Recently I had the rare pleasure of seeing one basking in the sun on a log (pictured right). It is obvious why the alternative name is the Snake-necked Turtle.
Behind the scenes …
When we took a road-kill Brush-tailed Phascogale to be preserved for the Strath Creek Landcare Group, the taxidermist Dean Smith kindly showed us his workshop in the basement of the Melbourne Museum, where exhibits on display in the museum are prepared, preserved and restored.
This proved to be a fascinating experience, with Dean revealing some of the art and techniques he uses. We later visited his home workshop, and discovered more of his skills in preparing replicas and inter-active displays for education.
Now you too have a chance to see some of Dean’s work and hear some of the tricks of his trade !
Join us on Friday 14th November at the Flowerdale Hall, at 7.30pm. Click on the flyer at right for full details.
For a preview of Dean’s artistry visit his website HERE.
In one end and out the other
A grove of Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) saplings that germinated after the ’09 fires has been a continual source of interest, mainly because of the invertebrates that live on it. This year one of the saplings has been strong (and bushy) enough to support a Striated Thornbill nest, pictured left.
The Striated Thornbill (Acanthiza lineata), pictured right, is a member of the Acanthizidae family, which contains other birds such as Weebills, Gerygones and Scrubwrens. It is only found in mainland south-eastern Australia. The scientific name is derived from the Greek words acantheon meaning a thorn-bush and zao meaning to live in, and the Latin word lineatus meaning lined, referring to the markings on the head – literally a ‘lined thorn-bush dweller’.
The nest is an oval domed construction with a hooded opening near the top. It is made out of bark, spider webs and moss and is lined with fur and feathers. The female incubates the eggs. Both parents feed the young. Immediately after feeding, the chicks defecate a faecal sac – a translucent gelatinous membrane containing all the excrement. In practice one parent flies in and feeds the chicks followed by the second parent which removes the faecal sac (pictured left).
They must feel pooped.
Same species, different outfit
This is not about local sightings, but does highlight what you may come across when getting out and about to some of the wonderful Biodiversity Spring events being held across the Goulburn Broken catchment and north-east Victoria, coordinated by the Euroa Arboretum. After attending the ‘Taminick Walk and Squawk’ (and seeing the promised Turquoise Parrots) we made our way up to the northern (Killawarra) section of Warby-Ovens National Park and were lucky enough to spot this Lace Monitor (Varanus varius) pictured at left climbing up a Mugga Ironbark tree (Eucalyptus sideroxylon). This particular goanna is the less common ‘Bell’s form’ of the Lace Monitor, characterised by the broad banding on its body and tail.
When first spotted it had a small colourful feather stuck to the edge of its mouth – hopefully its last meal wasn’t a Turquoise Parrot!
The following day we attended the first of the Grassy Woodlands Field Days held at Dookie College. Following a morning of informative talks, we headed to the college’s bushland reserve where we again came across a Lace Monitor climbing a tree, this time the more usual form with a patterning of more subtle bands and spots – see the photo at right.
You are probably unlikely to encounter a Lace Monitor in the Flowerdale/Strath Creek area, but please, prove us wrong and report any sighting by leaving a comment below.
One lump or two?
Hemiptera is an order of insects characterised by having sucking mouthparts. Some species suck sap from plants. Others just suck the life out of each other. Insects of this group include gumtree hoppers and psyllids, featured in previous blogs.
The sap suckers try to extract protein from the sap. This is their food. However, the protein is in such small quantities that the insects have to suck up an enormous amount of sugary sap to meet their requirements. To do this they simply suck in the sap and remove the proteins while, at the same time, expelling the waste sugar from their anuses in the form of honeydew.
Recently I found hemipterans known as Wattle Plant Lice (Acizzia sp.) on a Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha). Probably the fourth and fifth instars of the lice are shown in both photos. The white packages dragged along by some of the instars are crystalline honeydew. It’s a bit like going to a tea party where it’s BYO sugar-cube. An element missing from this scene is the presence of ants. Ants would usually attend these creatures to harvest the honeydew in return for protecting them from predators.
Maybe the ants were out getting the scones and bikkies.
Metamorphosis 3
10th October – full tail
11th October – tail shrinking
13th October – tail almost gone
At the risk of tadpole overload, we will finish the Metamorphosis series of posts with some pictures of our last home-raised frog. What amazed us about this one was the speed of change in the last few stages of development, particularly the shrinking of the tail, as you can see from the dates on the photos.
This tadpole/frog turned out to be a brown tree frog, but without hearing its call, we can’t be sure whether it is a Southern Brown Tree Frog (Litoria ewingii), or a Plains Brown Tree Frog (Litoria paraewingi), as it seems we are on the overlap of distribution of the two species. In the past we have heard the calls of both of them here. Either way, we returned it to our ephemeral wetland, where we hope it will be able to avoid the interest of the White-necked Heron currently residing there.
The other tiny frogs we previously managed to raise from tadpoles appeared to be Common Froglet (Crinia signifera) and Plains Froglet (Crinia parinsignifera), which were also returned to the wetland.
Duck? What duck?
Looking down onto the dam from the hillside I could make out several ducks and the unmistakeable shape of a flotilla of ducklings. Lots of quacking and lots of splashing about. This was strange because ducks often frequent the dam but never with ducklings, and they fly off well before I get there. But with ducklings what would they do to hide from me??
When I got to the dam the ducks were nowhere in sight. After a careful search I found them hidden in the branches of a fallen tree in the dam (above) – a male and female Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea) and a female Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata) with three chicks. Several things were unusual. First, they were completely silent, including the ducklings – very well trained. Second, I could not quite make them out because they weren’t ‘duck-like’ in shape.
I know as a bird watcher and a hunter (with a camera) of animals through the bush that very often it is an unusual shape in the landscape that triggers me to observe that something is there, rather than the direct recognition. This ability we have to recognise shapes rather than objects is the reason for example army clothes and vehicles are camouflaged in khaki, dark green and brown patches – the colour hides the subject and the patches break up the shape of the person or vehicle and therefore makes it less recognisable.
Even though I could tell the ducks were in there I couldn’t recognise a shape. The adult ducks held their heads out in front of them submerged up to the eyes and nostrils. And the ducklings were doing the same. Their shape was more like floating wood than duck and therefore in between the branches they were very difficult to see.
Maybe I am making the explanation up but I have never seen ducks sit like that AND they were hard to see.
Birthday treat
It seems some wildlife around Flowerdale is getting very hungry and very bold lately. Our last post was on a Common Pheasant hanging around the back door of a Flowerdale farmhouse, and now we have the case of a Brush-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa) turning up at Trent and Vikki’s side door, scurrying around late in the morning, much to their astonishment. 
They were actually celebrating their son Jarrah’s birthday and, although they wouldn’t normally feed wild animals, they couldn’t resist offering the phascogale some birthday lunch chicken, which was greedily consumed as they watched fascinated from the doorway.
The phascogale looks large enough to be an adult and, since all adult males would have succumbed to stress-induced disease by now, we can assume that this was a lactating female, hungry enough to be out foraging during the day.
Mystery solved
We received the photo at left from Norm, who has a grazing property backing onto the Mt. Disappointment State Forest at Flowerdale. The shot was taken through his kitchen window with a mobile phone camera, and Norm wanted to know the identity of the bird that was brazenly wandering around next to his house, pecking at spilt grain from his bird feeder.
Due to its streaked/mottled back, our first knee-jerk thought (hope) was a Spotted Quail-thrush, an uncommon bird that has been sighted in recent times on the edges of the forest as well as other parts of the district.
We decided to set up a remote camera close to the house and, after a few days, a check of the camera revealed, among many shots of Norm’s chooks, cat, dogs, lawnmower, sparrows and a king-parrot, several clear pictures of the mystery bird. See blown-up photo below.
It is in fact a Common Pheasant, a female. This is an introduced species, possibly someone’s escaped pet, since few manage to survive in the wild.
Perhaps Norm can keep fattening it up for a good Xmas lunch !
Focus On Fauna 