Some Fauna of Mc Ewan State Forest

It's not their fault they don't have feathers! Doesn't make them any less interesting. And just like the birds, it's good to know what species are about locally at any given time.

There's expertise within the club and beyond on most aspects of our local fauna. Let's tap into it.
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Rod Hobson
Posts: 509
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2006 8:03 am

Some Fauna of Mc Ewan State Forest

Post by Rod Hobson »

Folks,

I've just finished a week-long fauna survey of McEwan State Forest near Pittsworth SEQ. Here we were concentrating on the fauna of the alluvial floodplain of native and exotic grasses on the typical black-cracking clays of the eastern Darling Downs. We managed to record 10 species of mammal, 63 birds, 13 reptile species and four frogs aside to quite a respectable list of butterflies, moths, arachnids, orthopterans and ants. Whilst our trapping efforts were confined to the grasslands we also did incidental recording of the adjoining Ironbark/Mountain Coolibah ridges and hills.

Four species of macropod were seen during the week; Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Red-necked Wallaby, Whiptail Wallaby and Swamp Wallaby. Our most interesting mammal captured (and released unharmed) was a female Narrow-nosed Planigale (Planigale tenuirostris) which, at a total length of 140 mm that includes 65 mm of tail, is one of Australia's smallest marsupials. This little girl was one of 'the finds' of the week.

There was nothing really surprising in the birds seen but we did record some interesting species such as Speckled Warbler, Varied Sittella, Brown Songlark, Horsfield's Bushlark, Stubble Quail and Ground Cuckoo-shrike. From under a Wedge-tailed Eagle's eyrie we found the skeletal remains of Red-necked Wallaby, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Brown Hare and, surprisingly, the carapace and plastron of the Eastern Snake-necked Turtle (Chelodina longicollis).

The reduced-limbed skink Anomalopus verreauxii was very common on the place in all habitats including the alluvial flats. Other lizards that proved common included the Striped Ctenotus (Ctenotus robustus), Stone Geko (Diplodactylus vittatus), Tree Dtella (Gehyra dubia), Fire-tailed Skink (Morethia taeniopleura), the tiny skink Carlia (Lygisaurus) foliorum and the 'old regular', the Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata). We also got single records each of the small litter-dwelling skink Lerista fragilis and Spotted Black Snake (Pseudechis guttatus).

On the second night of the survey a spate of small storms scudded across the state forest, which stirred up the local amphibian population. Spotted Grass Frogs (Limnodynastes tasmaniensis) were bouncing everywhere on the alluvial flats but the best frog record, and one of the best records for the survey, was of the very handsome burrower, the Salmon-striped Frog (Limnodynastes salmini). This is the nearest to Toowoomba that I have personally recorded this frog although single records exist for Kingsthorpe and Goombungee. It becomes much more common around Dalby and to the west especially on black clay soils.

We also recorded a mixed bag of invertebrates including two scorpions, which are animals of particular interest to me. They were a small Lychas species very like Lychas variatus but the taxonomy of which is somewhat confused at present. I have found this little scorpion to be quite common on the black-cracking clays of the eastern Darling Downs. It may well be an as yet undescribed species according to the pundits but work on this muddled genus is yet to be done. The second species found was the Black Rock Scorpion (Urodacus manicatus); a species that I've recorded as far east as Helidon although it appears to be much more common west of the range in SEQ.

Although the focus of the week's endeavours was faunal we did find about 32 individuals of the rare and threatened (vulnerable) Austral Cornflower (Rhaponticum australe), until recently known as Stemmacantha australis. Although this plant exists in isolated pockets on road reserves and private property on the Darling Downs it was great to find it on a protected estate. The only other population of this plant that I've seen on a protected area in Queensland is on the Marlong Plain in the Mount Moffatt Section of the Carnarvon National Park so it was great to find a second population on McEwan S.F. The Ausral Cornflower is also a threatened species in New South Wales and presumed extinct in Victoria.

Mc Ewan State Forest is only a recent aquisition and not as yet open to the public, however when it eventually is it'll surely prove to be a little gem for the local natural history community.

Regards,
Rod Hobson
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