Expeditions: Southern Queensland

The mighty Cooper's Creek flows into desert where it disappears

In December 2006 Scott and Vasyl traveled to southern Queensland hoping to accomplish two objectives. Since the majority of helminth species previously known from Australian turtles were described from Southern Queensland, we needed to collect these species from their type localities. This would provide us with morphological specimens and DNA sequences for comparison with samples collected elsewhere on the continent. Our second objective was to reach as far inland from the coast as the time would permit and try to trap what may be an undescribed species of Emydrua from Cooper's Creek. This “creek” is really a river that does not drain into an ocean, but runs to Lake Eyre, a body of water that fills only every 30 years or so.

We started our field work by joining Scott O’Keefe and a team employed by the Queensland government to control Trachemys scripta, the invasive red slider from North America that has been illegally released into the waters of Queensland. We caught more eels than turtles, and no sliders, but we did end up with nice specimens of and Emydura macquarii and one Chelodina expansa.

W then headed west on our own, trapping turtles from numerous locations between Brisbane and Charleville, where Steve Peck of Queensland Parks and Wildlife assisted our collections. We then made a quick drive to Cooper’s Creek at Windorah where we very rapidly collected a number of Emydura before making a kangaroo-infested run back to Charleville at dusk. Although the landscape was dry and desolate it clearly supports thousands of suicidal kangaroos intent on ending it all on the bumper of our Ford Falcon.

In the end, we achieved our objectives, although we found just one helminth species (Sigmapera) in the Cooper's Creek Emydura. This and other data collected on this trip suggest that when western Queensland rivers dry up, as they do on occasion, the turtles may return with the water but the parasites do not.

A monitor near Charleville	Water dragon on the bank of Brisbane River
A crew sets traps as part of the effort to control invasive red-eared sliders at Halpine Dam near Brisbane	Jacana at Halpine Dam
Butcherbird	Australian anhinga
At the pond	Lots of eels! No longnecks...
Scott and Steve Peck measure turtles before release	The trap was broken by the weight of 63 turtles
These marks were made by herpetologists 2 years ago	Part of a 500,000 member colony of fruit bats (3 species)
Some try to pretend bigger than they are	Emu family
Flowers pop up immediately after rain, then disappear again	Australian pasture (this is not a joke!)
Emydura from Cooper's Creek that is apparently an undescribed species	One big Emydura!
Kangaroos are at their evening promenade. But we have to somehow drive here	They feel safe by the camp
Finally a longneck after days of catching only shortnecks	The Buckaroo Motel made famous by Thomas Platt. Tom established the fluke genus Buckarootrema
A beautiful Australian pelican surrounded by a fleet of cormorants	After a meal
The bilby is one of the most endangered (and cutest) animals in Australia. "Save the bilby" Fund tries to protect their habitat and breeds them in captivity for release	This little ditch is the last lifeline of hundreds of longnecks. The well (bore) that supplies the ditch was to have been shut off

Authors: Vasyl V. Tkach, Scott D. Snyder, Yuriy Kuzmin