Saturday, April 05, 2008

Mt tamborine wildlife


A couple of shots taken recently in our garden at Mt Tamborine. I contacted the Queensland Museum about this yellow spider, it's the first time I've seen one and I couldn't find a reference in any of our books. Apparently it's called a flower spider and they can also be white. Larraine with her keen eye spotted the Kookaburra having snake for lunch. It sat there for about 20 mins occasionally bashing the snake against the tree branch.

10 comments:

Teresa said...

Is the spider harmless? I love all the shades of green in your frog photos.

roybe said...

Teresa, it is harmless, but many spiders still bite and can possibly cause irritation. Tamborine Mt is home also to what is thought to possibly be the world's deadliest spider the Funnel Web.

Sue Swift said...

And what about the snakes? Do you have poisonous snakes around too?

roybe said...

Hello Sue thanks for calling by. we have about 18 species of snake has having been seen on Tamborine Mt. I think about half of that number would be dangerously venomous. Here is a link on the subject.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I was really interested to find your site. I live on Tamborine as well and I wonder if you can help answer a question for me. I saw a small animal recently (caught in my torch spotlight for a good minute so I had a good look). It was about the size of a bandicoot, similar shape face and tail...however it was definitely a rusty red colour with distinctive white spots....any ideas to the identity. I looked up quolls but none seemed to match what I saw. Thanks for any help you can give.

roybe said...

Hello Sue, I've looked up my encyclopedia of Australian wildlife., and the only thing I can find that has white spots is a Spotted-tailed quoll, it's distribution covers wetter areas of South-east Qld. Failing that Rick Natrass used to do a segment on ABC radio you could email or ring in with a question. If you can't find a picture of this Quoll I can blog a picture from my book.

Roy

roybe said...

Sue, just do google search on Spotted -tailed Quoll. It's probably the one you saw. It can be rust coloured and it's quite rare.

Mike said...

Hi Roy
Sorry that this is coming out of the blue.
My sister is looking to move to QLD - probably near Brisbane as she is a marine biologist. She is asking me about life in Brisbane but I live in Sydney and can't help too much. She is in NZ currently. We both emigrated from South Africa about 5 years ago. Would you be amenable to opening a discussion with her?
Regards
Mike

roybe said...

Mike I would be happy to answer any of your sisters questions. I had trouble accessing your blog though.

Roy

Liz Welch said...

Love the photos,Yellow Spider,never seen one before.
Regards,
Liz Welch.