Re: Varanus finschi

Now when I have left mainland PNG for New Britain I thought it was about time for another update; my stay in Alotau proved to be considerbly longer than I had fírst expected when I arrived here in PNG in March 09. I ended up spending nearly a month over in Alotau at the very eastern end of mainland New Guinea, which showed to be increadibly rewarding in several aspects. And even if I will return to Alota even now and then I will surely miss this place, Papuans are among the most friendly people on earth and I made many new friends during my short stay here.

I had a lot of free time and did basically spend hours out in the "bush" looking for all sorts of animals, even took up birdwatching again (something I havent done since the early 1980s), but with a P. raggiana display site less than a 30min walk from the apartment who wouldent hey?

Due to high hunting pressure in the surroundings of Alotau in the past (tourism is taking over more and more, both positive and negatives sides of that) much wildlife has been depleated in the last 20 years and "large mammals" (in PNG we are speaking about kangaroos, bandicoots and cuscuses; not deers, big cats and such) for ex. are close to gone, though I had my fair share of encounteres with aggresive cuscus during my early morning walks (even ended up in paying a short visit to the local hospital once), I guess they didnt like being bothered by some jerk looking for small lizards in their sleeping trees. Birdlife was somewhat more abundant around Alotau lucklily and I have to admit that alot of time which could have been spent looking for reptiles and amphibians was spent birdwatching instead.

Most habitat around Alotau consisted of wet-savannah, and which grew suprisingly fast after each time it rained. Otherweise there is pretty much secondary forest covering the hills sourroinding Alotau; I miss admit that I dont know which monitor sp. to expect in different habitats but based on my observations several seemed to inhabit a variety of habitats. As I have mentioned earlier I had a "family group" (dont know how else to put it) of emerald tree monitors in patches of forest just next to my apartment, wary litttle things I only managed to catch one of these despite many attempts, after a short examination it was released again (my first close encounter with a wild monitor); of course I never even came close to catch one again, they became more wary than ever though I enjoyed some nice views of them while resting in the remaning trees or scrambling around the house-complex.

I never found any V. indicus inside or around Alotau, despite spending much time looking for them down by the water where I managed to locate some decent-looking mangrove forest. Though during my various trips westwards along the northern coast I had plenty of encounters with this species, which proved to be more common around smaller communities, I did found some large mangrove forests remaning along the northern coastline of the Milne Bay Province and in these it was easy to encounter this species once you spent adequete time in these.

Founding additional species of monitor proved considerbly harder than I had thought; seing a few captive (3 species) in Alotau but these didnt count of course. My second week in Aloutau was spent in the hill forests surroundings the city (approx. 25min walk from the centre of town) and I did spend some 2-3 hours in the field each day looking through about a dozen different localities, high humidity and the relatively high amount of rain did limit my time somewhat unfortunely. I did found plenty of herps however and some of the highlights includes M. amethistina, Typhlops sp. (2 different species), Candoia sp. (to many changes in this genus lately to keep on track which species), Pseudonaja sp. and the frog S. dentata.

The first monitor sp. I found here was a V. doreanus which was seen sitting on top of a small limestone cliff sunning (?) itself, not a large individual and would estimate 30-40cm, though despite my first view of this species was rather poor I returned to this general area multiple times afterwards and managed some great views of this species eventually, even seeing a large one which I estimated to be roughly 70cm. The habitat in this area seemed optimal for V. doreanus and I will surely return on a later occasion to try and document these better. That the individuals seemed to vary much in size as well is defenitely promising.

I had my hopes high to try and find V. finschi here in south-east PNG, according to Kraus (pers. comm) it should be found in the Milne Bay Province, but further inland and in somewhat different habitat, though without any reaible sites to look for it I soon gave up my hopes trying to find it, time was also against me as it probably would take a several hour long trip to even get to the suitable habitat. I choosed to spend my time closer to Alotau and try my luck for other species of monitor there, rather spending hours in vain for something I had a slim chance to find.

With Emerald Tree Monitor, Mangrove Monitor and Blue-tailed Monitor checked off the list I had seen 3 out of 5 monitor species found in the MB Province. In my third week I wanted to make a shot for one of my absolute monitor sp, the Peach-throated monitor V. jobiensis. I had seen a captive during my second week in Alotau and it confirmed that they indeed could be found within reach from Alotau.

More to come...............