Date: 11/01/2014 09:23:06
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 467909
Subject: Snowy wildlife

Wildlife seen on four day trip to the Snowy Mountains. I have videos of many of these.

Geehi
Kangaroo.

Thredbo
Hare, Rabbit, Wombat hole.
Crimson rosella, Wood duck, Black duck, Crow, Pied currawong, White-backed magpie, Swallow, Wattlebird, Eastern spinebill, White eared honeyeater, Yellow faced honeyeater, Black cormorant, Coot, Starling.
Lepidoptera – tineidae white 20 mm wingspan, cream 10 mm wingspan, black with multiple white spots 25 mm wingspan, white butterfly.
Fly – bottle-fly 9 mm long, meat fly 6 mm long, fly 10 mm long.
Dragonfly 120 mm long, Blue damselfly, Lacewing 25 mm with 5 mm antennae.
Wasp – 10 mm long black wasp with white fore-abdomen, 8 mm long black wasp.
Irridescent blue-green beetle 13 mm long.
Black ant 10 mm long, small black ant.
Domestic bee.
Earthworm (dead) 8 mm diameter! 23-25 mm long.

Rams Head Range above Thredbo
Galaxia (a fish), tadpole.
Richard’s pipit, Crow.
Pineapple grass, Billy buttons, Sphagnum moss, Dandelion, Grass, Variegated eyebright, White-petalled daisy, Native tea plant, Candle-flower.

Mt Kosciuszko
Crow.
Black weevil 23 mm long, black & yellow grasshopper 12 mm long.
Horse dung.
Dandelion, grass.

Jindabine area
Wallaby.
White cockatoo.
Brown butterfly, white butterfly, black beetle 10 mm long.

Guthega power station
Grey fantail, Pied currawong.
Domestic bee, fly 6 mm long, March fly 13 mm long, black ant 3 mm long, black ant 10 mm long, leafhopper.

Charlottes Pass
Lepidoptera – moth 25 mm wingspan white with grey dashed lines (Alucitidae?), blue butterfly 20 mm wingspan, brown butterfly 15 mm wingspan, small moth.
Grasshopper 10 mm.

The Cascades (near Dead Horse Pass)
Horse dung.
Common brown butterfly.

All places between 1500 & 1850 metres high
Snow gum.

Glenrowan
New Holland Honeyeater.

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Date: 11/01/2014 09:24:56
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 467910
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

> Earthworm (dead) 8 mm diameter! 23-25 mm long.

Oops, 230-250 mm long.

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:39:46
From: Peak Warming Man
ID: 467933
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

mollwollfumble said:


> Earthworm (dead) 8 mm diameter! 23-25 mm long.

Oops, 230-250 mm long.

The biggest earth worms in the world are found not far away in the Grampians I believe.

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:44:39
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 467937
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

> The biggest earth worms in the world are found not far away in the Grampians I believe.

I’ve seen claims of “biggest earthworm” from at least three continents. The Thredbo one was startlingly fat.

Comments.

Clarifications: By “blue butterfly” I mean blue Lycaenidae. By “brown butterfly” I mean Heteronympha or similar. By “white butterfly” I mean cabbage white or similar (possibly caper white).

The “wallaby” near Jindabyne was probably a swamp wallaby, dark colour with rounded ears and muzzle. The “kangaroo” near Geehi was a Macropus species, not as large as an Eastern Grey.

Immigrants.
I did not expect the highest-living dicot in Australia to be the dandelion! And I did confirm that it was a true dandelion. This trip has given me a real insight into how the dandelion evolved in the first place – as an alpine plant in heavily grazed meadows.
The horse dung is almost certainly from brumbies.
I had not expected to see Common starlings and European hares in Thredbo.
Some immigrants were notable by their absence – no Indian mynah, sparrow, blackbird.

Most common.
The most common animal was the crow, I saw more than a hundred different individuals, perhaps two hundred. Of the insects, apart from ants and flies, the lacewing was by far the most common.

Friendliness.
Many animals were friendly: crow, pied currawong and wood duck in particular.

Identifications.
The black wasp with white fore-abdomen may have been a Braconid Wasp (Callibracon sp.) .

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:48:35
From: Dropbear
ID: 467943
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Peak Warming Man said:


mollwollfumble said:

> Earthworm (dead) 8 mm diameter! 23-25 mm long.

Oops, 230-250 mm long.

The biggest earth worms in the world are found not far away in the Grampians I believe.

They guard the spice..,

I don’t remember seeing any worms in the Grampians

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:55:19
From: buffy
ID: 467954
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

>>The biggest earth worms in the world are found not far away in the Grampians I believe.<<

No, Gippsland, Eastern Victoria. Where the fault line is that give Melbourne and environs little earth tremors. I’ve often wondered if there might be local stories about the earthworms and the shaking, but I don’t think I’ve ever followed that up.

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:55:38
From: roughbarked
ID: 467955
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

mollwollfumble said:


> Earthworm (dead) 8 mm diameter! 23-25 mm long.

Oops, 230-250 mm long.


It’d be shrunken if dead.

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:58:12
From: roughbarked
ID: 467957
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Peak Warming Man said:


mollwollfumble said:

> Earthworm (dead) 8 mm diameter! 23-25 mm long.

Oops, 230-250 mm long.

The biggest earth worms in the world are found not far away in the Grampians I believe.

Big earthworms are anywhere where it gets watered.

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:59:28
From: buffy
ID: 467958
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Here you are…Sir David and the Gippsland worms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxeT_GDKv9g

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Date: 11/01/2014 10:59:42
From: roughbarked
ID: 467959
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Dropbear said:


Peak Warming Man said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Earthworm (dead) 8 mm diameter! 23-25 mm long.

Oops, 230-250 mm long.

The biggest earth worms in the world are found not far away in the Grampians I believe.

They guard the spice..,

I don’t remember seeing any worms in the Grampians

Either it was dry season or you weren’t looking.

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Date: 11/01/2014 11:00:33
From: Peak Warming Man
ID: 467960
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

I have never seen a blackbird in Brisbane and environs.
There used to be heaps of sparrows and starlings but not any more.
The latest import is the Indian Myna, the council up in the mountains is having an eradication campaign but I think they are pissing in the wind.

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Date: 11/01/2014 11:01:38
From: roughbarked
ID: 467961
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

buffy said:

>>The biggest earth worms in the world are found not far away in the Grampians I believe.<<

No, Gippsland, Eastern Victoria. Where the fault line is that give Melbourne and environs little earth tremors. I’ve often wondered if there might be local stories about the earthworms and the shaking, but I don’t think I’ve ever followed that up.

It is all about the supply of water. The big earthworms appear when there is a constant water supply at the surface.

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Date: 11/01/2014 11:02:11
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 467963
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

> It’d be shrunken if dead.

Recently dead, perhaps only one day or even less, just starting to be eaten by hordes of ants.

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Date: 11/01/2014 11:02:13
From: roughbarked
ID: 467964
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Peak Warming Man said:


I have never seen a blackbird in Brisbane and environs.
There used to be heaps of sparrows and starlings but not any more.
The latest import is the Indian Myna, the council up in the mountains is having an eradication campaign but I think they are pissing in the wind.

If you have Indian Mynas then blackbirds aren’t far away.

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Date: 11/01/2014 11:03:23
From: roughbarked
ID: 467969
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

mollwollfumble said:


> It’d be shrunken if dead.

Recently dead, perhaps only one day or even less, just starting to be eaten by hordes of ants.

If the conditions are moist, they may not shrink immediately.

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Date: 11/01/2014 17:29:50
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 468213
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Blackbirds started off in Australian in Melbourne, and have been slow to spread north.

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Date: 13/01/2014 12:49:20
From: Speedy
ID: 468966
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

We did a similar trip just before XMas and also saw:

Jindabine – galahs
Alpine Circuit – gang gang cockatoos
Kosciuscko Road – deer
Main Range Track – a spider which looked like a funnel web or mouse spider (dead), a cicada which must have blown in from the foothills to the west, mating beetles (similar in body shape to longicorn) and a skink (Yellow-bellied or Alpine water skink)
Geehi – rainbow trout
Island Bend – Common death adder

It was disappointing to see the brumby dung at the information sign on the top of Kosciuscko. At Thredbo Diggings we met a fellow camper who was stranded as his car was being repaired after hitting a brumby on the Alpine Way between there and Thredbo.

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Date: 13/01/2014 13:06:27
From: Speedy
ID: 468967
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Actually the worms in this thread have now reminded me of something I saw on the Main Range Track in about 2011. It was right at the top near Carruther’s Peak in a puddle of water. At first I thought it was a group of small earthworms and a larger worm, but on looking more closely at the largest one, it was obvious that these were parasitic. One end was opened up like a big mouth! On returning home I ID’d it as some type of fluke.

In the past if walking high in the mountains, I’ve had no issue with drinking water carefully collected from streams. This changed my mind quickly and permanently. I’ve since heard that in Spring when the snow starts melting the place looks like a big toilet.

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Date: 13/01/2014 13:45:43
From: buffy
ID: 468969
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

I have been misled for years! I thought the death adder was an inland thing….I’ve just looked at its range. It’s Eastern coast, northern part and some of the Nullabor area coast.

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Date: 13/01/2014 17:48:20
From: PermeateFree
ID: 469099
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Speedy said:


Actually the worms in this thread have now reminded me of something I saw on the Main Range Track in about 2011. It was right at the top near Carruther’s Peak in a puddle of water. At first I thought it was a group of small earthworms and a larger worm, but on looking more closely at the largest one, it was obvious that these were parasitic. One end was opened up like a big mouth! On returning home I ID’d it as some type of fluke.

In the past if walking high in the mountains, I’ve had no issue with drinking water carefully collected from streams. This changed my mind quickly and permanently. I’ve since heard that in Spring when the snow starts melting the place looks like a big toilet.

Human infections are most common in Asia, Africa, South America, or the Middle East. However, trematodes can be found anywhere where human waste is used as fertilizer. Schistosomiasis (also known as bilharzia, bilharziosis or snail fever) is an example of a parasitic disease caused by one of the species of trematodes (platyhelminth infection, or “flukes”), a parasitic worm of the genus Schistosoma.

Trematodes are commonly referred to as flukes. This term can be traced back to the Old English name for flounder, and refers to the flattened, rhomboidal shape of the worms.

The flukes can be classified into two groups, on the basis of the system which they infect in the vertebrate host.

Tissue flukes infect the bile ducts, lungs, or other biological tissues. This group includes the lung fluke, Paragonimus westermani, and the liver flukes, Clonorchis sinensis and Fasciola hepatica.

Blood flukes inhabit the blood in some stages of their life cycle. Blood flukes include species of the genus Schistosoma.

They may also be classified according to the environment in which they are found. For instance, pond flukes infect fish in ponds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trematoda

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:21:34
From: Speedy
ID: 469328
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

PermeateFree said:

Trematodes are commonly referred to as flukes. This term can be traced back to the Old English name for flounder, and refers to the flattened, rhomboidal shape of the worms.

The flukes can be classified into two groups, on the basis of the system which they infect in the vertebrate host.

Tissue flukes infect the bile ducts, lungs, or other biological tissues. This group includes the lung fluke, Paragonimus westermani, and the liver flukes, Clonorchis sinensis and Fasciola hepatica.

Blood flukes inhabit the blood in some stages of their life cycle. Blood flukes include species of the genus Schistosoma.

They may also be classified according to the environment in which they are found. For instance, pond flukes infect fish in ponds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trematoda

Sounds like any type of fluke is nasty. I don’t want to find any part of any fluke in my drinking water, thank you. The thing I saw was huge and would have any human host rushing to a doctor in no time. Perhaps it was from a brumby’s butt afterall.

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:22:24
From: wookiemeister
ID: 469329
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

funnel web spiders

marsh flys

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:25:25
From: PermeateFree
ID: 469335
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Speedy said:


PermeateFree said:

Trematodes are commonly referred to as flukes. This term can be traced back to the Old English name for flounder, and refers to the flattened, rhomboidal shape of the worms.

The flukes can be classified into two groups, on the basis of the system which they infect in the vertebrate host.

Tissue flukes infect the bile ducts, lungs, or other biological tissues. This group includes the lung fluke, Paragonimus westermani, and the liver flukes, Clonorchis sinensis and Fasciola hepatica.

Blood flukes inhabit the blood in some stages of their life cycle. Blood flukes include species of the genus Schistosoma.

They may also be classified according to the environment in which they are found. For instance, pond flukes infect fish in ponds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trematoda

Sounds like any type of fluke is nasty. I don’t want to find any part of any fluke in my drinking water, thank you. The thing I saw was huge and would have any human host rushing to a doctor in no time. Perhaps it was from a brumby’s butt afterall.

From memory is was stated the largest was around 3” in length. Whether the large one was a fluke (also a funny).

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:25:54
From: Speedy
ID: 469337
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Actually the mating beetles I saw were probably the same as the black weevils Mollwollfumble saw.

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:28:48
From: Speedy
ID: 469342
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

PermeateFree said:

From memory is was stated the largest was around 3” in length. Whether the large one was a fluke (also a funny).

Could have been only 3” long but seemed bigger when I realised what it was. In another 3 years I’ll be saying it was bigger still.

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:31:16
From: roughbarked
ID: 469345
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

lucijet.

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:32:18
From: PermeateFree
ID: 469347
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Speedy said:


PermeateFree said:

From memory is was stated the largest was around 3” in length. Whether the large one was a fluke (also a funny).

Could have been only 3” long but seemed bigger when I realised what it was. In another 3 years I’ll be saying it was bigger still.

Unusual sightings usually do, unless you are saying something was the smallest.

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:34:49
From: Skunkworks
ID: 469352
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

PermeateFree said:

From memory is was stated the largest was around 3” in length. Whether the large one was a fluke (also a funny).

Memory can be tricky. Take a photo of it next to a Wagon Wheel for a record of size in the future.

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:38:21
From: PermeateFree
ID: 469353
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

Skunkworks said:


PermeateFree said:

From memory is was stated the largest was around 3” in length. Whether the large one was a fluke (also a funny).

Memory can be tricky. Take a photo of it next to a Wagon Wheel for a record of size in the future.

One of the small ones. :)

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:39:43
From: jjjust moi
ID: 469354
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

and the wanker wa gov are taking backhanded credit for saving 400 houses

http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/

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Date: 13/01/2014 21:44:45
From: Mr Ironic
ID: 469356
Subject: re: Snowy wildlife

and the wanker wa gov are taking backhanded credit for saving 400 houses
——————————————————-

lol

If 450 homes were lost… they would have saved thousands.

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