I have just found out something that has excited my greatly while reading the latest edition of Practical Reptile Keeping. Well any news of this kind is enough to excite any reptile enthusiast, but it excited me a little more this time around. Me and my girlfriend are currently saving up for a working holiday in Australia, which we aim to be setting off sometime in late 2015 if all goes well. While we are over there, I am hoping to not only gain more experience in working with reptiles and amphibians, but to also see the variety of species in their natural habitat while travelling the continent. Well cut to the chase, the news is that there have been new herp species discovered in Cape York Peninsula, North-East Australia. These include a leaf-tailed gecko, a golden-coloured skink and a boulder-dwelling frog.

In this area of Australia, there is a place called Cape Melville which is a sort of mountain range filled with exceptionally large black granite boulders. Earlier this year, the National Geographic Expedition Council and a film crew choppered into this largely unexplored area and weren’t disappointed in what they discovered. The nature of this landscape has effectively stranded several species of animals away from the rest of the continent by a border of hot, dry forest, for possibly millions of years.

The gecko that the team found is a species of leaf-tailed gecko, that bears a resemblance I think to one of my favourites, the aptly named satanic leaf-tailed gecko. Though due to the isolation that these animals have endured, they are rather different to their relatives. It spends its daytime hidden away in those granite boulders, emerging at night to hunt in much cooler temperatures. Although hunting maybe isn’t an appropriate word to use based on the method carried out by the geckos, they rather ambush their prey while lurking in the cracks and crevices of the boulders. They have very slender bodies, making their legs appear unusually long, and their colour gives effective camouflage.

The second creature found was a species of skink, with a beautiful gold colour to its skin. Reptiles never fail to impress with their variety of colours and patterns. This animal is also long and slender in limbs and body, but is more active in the day unlike the gecko. The name given to this skink (Saproscincus saltus) was assigned because the word saltus means leaping, and this skink was seen leaping through the rocky terrain of its environment hunting insects.

And finally the boulder-dwelling frog. Now known to science as the blotched boulder-frog, is a small creature and has an even more restricted habitat than the previous two, Being found only in the fields of Cape Melville. During the dry season this frog remains in the cooler area deep down in the boulder fields, where there is a more suitable moisture in the air. The frogs posses swollen foot pads which assists them in climbing among the boulders. Again I love the coloration of this frog, it appears to have a sort of golden colour also, with brown spots rotten across its back and limbs.

It is a shame that they are in an area that will be difficult to access for myself due to few transport opportunities and the unusual terrain, otherwise visiting Cape Melville in order to try and catch a glimpse of these newly discovered animals would be high up on my list.