ORANGE FIELD NATURALIST AND CONSERVATION SOCIETY Inc
NEWSLETTER JULY 2016
TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT OFNCS AND BRING THEM TO A MEETING!
http://www.orangefieldnats.com/
NEXT MEETING
Thursday, 14th July, 7.30 pm
SPEAKER: Caroline Forest
TOPIC: Microbats
Venue: Orange Community
Information and Services Centre.
(Next to Senior Citizens Centre.
Enter from Woolworths carpark.).
No Committee Meeting this month
EXCURSION
Sunday, 17th July
Goobang National Park
Meet at Orange High Bus Bay
at 9am
Last Meeting
Speakers: Murray and Vicki Fletcher
Topic: Madagascar
Summary by the editor
In April, we spent three weeks on a walking
tour of Madagascar, including visits to six
national parks and nature reserves. Our
travelling companions were all Australian and
all had particular interests, mainly in natural
history, which meant we enjoyed sharing our
time together. We not only saw lots of the
creatures which have made Madagascar a
highly desirable destination for biologists, but
also learned much about the culture and the
people of this amazing place.
Bring morning tea
(lunch too, if you want to stay longer)
New Member
We welcome Fiona Johnson as a new
member of the Society.
Next Meeting
Our speaker, Caroline Forest is an
ecologist with Applied Ecology P/L Bathurst
and will talk to us about the important role
microbats play in ecological systems. If the
weather permits, we may also head out into the
carpark for a short time to see if we can detect
any microbat calls using Caroline's recording
equipment.
Next Excursion
On Sunday 17th we will be visiting the
southern (Bumberry) portion of Goobang
National Park (weather permitting).
Young Malagasy dudes in sunglasses near Tsara
Camp [photo: the editor]
Madagascar is a large island (about 1/3 the
size of Queensland) situated off the east coast
of Africa. When Gondwanaland broke up,
Madagascar separated from Africa at about the
same time as India did so it's been on its own
for a very long time. The Tropic of Capricorn
crosses the island towards its southern end so it
is mainly tropical with a high mountain range
along its eastern edge. This was originally
clothed in rainforest and there are pockets of
this left in mountainous reserves and we
visited one of these - Andasibe Mantadia
National Park where we saw our first lemurs,
including the Indri, and our first chameleons.
well before the Africans found it. There are
also Indian and Sri Lankan elements. Our tour
guide, Didier Ramilisson, is a graduate of the
University of Madagascar and was keen to
show us as much of the local culture as he
could. This included visiting a local aluminium
recycling plant, a silk production facility, a
paper factory and workshops for marquetry
and zebu horn carving. We visited a couple of
zoos where we saw some of the creatures we
were unlikely to see in the wild, like tenrecs
and the fosa, which is the top predator on the
island. These carnivorous mammals highlight
the evolutionary significance of Madagascar.
The fosa was once thought to be evolved from
the civets of Africa. The tenrecs have evolved
into shrew-like creatures, some like
hedgehogs, one like a mole and another like a
small otter. There are other creatures such as
the vontsiras and the falanouc which were
thought to be closest to mongooses
(mongeese?). However, DNA analyses have
shown that all these creatures have evolved
from a single ancestor and are now grouped
together as the family Eupleridae, endemic to
Madagascar.
Vicki gets to know a friendly black & white ruffed
lemur on Lemur Island [photo: the editor]
As you go further to the southwest, the
island becomes quite arid and the plants that
have evolved there have adopted similar watersaving strategies that you find in other arid
zone plants, including reduction of foliage and
the trunk and stems becoming both water
storing and photosynthetic. The Euphorbiaceae
is one of the dominant plant families and some
of these have evolved to be very much like the
cacti of other parts of the world. To protect
from herbivore damage, they have also
developed spines and the forests of the far
southwest are known as the spiny forests
because of the predominance of this type of
plant, including the extraordinary Didiereaceae
which are endemic to Madagascar, the weird
Pachypodium species (Apocynaceae) many of
which are known as Elephant Feet and the
magnificent baobabs (Adansonia spp) which
have six species endemic to Madagascar.
We started our talk with a quick tour
through the Madagascan landscapes followed
by a look at the Madagascan people, the
Malagasy, who are derived originally from
Indonesian seafarers who colonised the island
Oustalet's chameleon, one of the largest species
[photo: the editor]
The bulk of our talk was a review of the
plants, invertebrates, reptiles, birds and
mammals that we encountered on our trip.
Overall, the group saw over 100 species of
birds and I added 56 species to my life list,
including 11 species in one early morning walk
in the Ifaty Spiny Forest reserve. It is easy to
get new species of birds in Madagascar.
Several families (the vangas, tetrakas, mesites,
ground rollers and asities) along with many
genera in other families are restricted to the
island. Of particular note are the couas which
are beautifully coloured relatives of the
cuckoos and the vangas (endemic Family
Vangidae) with 15 genera (12 monotypic)
which have a range of beak shapes that put the
Galapagos finches to shame.
We also saw 13 species of lemurs
representing four of the five endemic families.
The only one we didn't see in the wild was the
family Daubentoniidae which comprises the
single species, the aye aye, which is one of the
wonders of Madagascan evolution. We also
saw around 20 different species of chameleons
and we were able to get up close to many of
them in one of the local zoos. We also found
some interesting frogs, snakes, spiders, giant
pillbugs and insects, including the hissing
cockroach and the giraffe-necked weevil (see
Creature of the Month).
Sickled billed vanga on an Alluaudia in the Spiny
Forest [photo: Peter Sheridan]
The trip was hard work because the 22
million people living on Madagascar have
cleared most of the original forest in order to
grow rice and other crops, including eucalypts
which they grow to make charcoal for cooking.
This means that the remnant forests are mainly
in inaccessible or very steep areas unsuitable
for agriculture and, in order to visit them, you
have to be able to climb up into them. The
rainforests of Andasibe Mantadia NP were
cold and wet, the spiny forests of the southwest
were hot, dry and prickly and the nights in
Ifaty and Anakao Ocean Resort were very
humid. Walking in these areas was a bit of a
struggle at times and we didn't all do all the
walks. However, what we experienced was
worth the effort.
Running coua in the Spiny Forest
[photo: the editor]
Last Excursion
Summary by the editor
Despite the threat of wet weather, we
headed out to Back Yamma State Forest and
enjoyed a beautiful day amongst the trees, trail
bike riders and hoons who seem to enjoy such
places on a long weekend. The Little Lorikeets
which Rosemary had seen in numbers just the
day before had, unfortunately, moved on
(possibly due to the noise from bikes in the
forest) but there were plenty of other goodies
to see (bird list below). The recent rains had
also brought out the fungi and patches of rich
green moss covered the ground in places. A
photo of the day is at the end of the newsletter.
Bird lists, 12 June 2016
Orange to Eugowra
Straw necked ibis, Galah, Sulphur crested
cockatoo, Crimson rosella, Laughing
Kookaburra, Welcome swallow, Magpie lark,
Australian
magpie,
Pied
currawong,
Australian raven
Eugowra to Back Yamma Road
Australian wood duck, Nankeen kestrel,
Crested pigeon, Australian king parrot,
Superb parrot, Eastern rosella, Red rumped
parrot, Black faced cuckoo shrike, Flying
weed (Common myna), Apostlebird
Back Yamma Road
Eastern rosella, Grey crowned babbler, Noisy
miner, Apostlebird, White winged chough,
Australian magpie, Grey butcherbird
Back Yamma State Forest
Australian wood duck, Common bronzewing,
Galah,
Eastern
rosella,
Laughing
Kookaburra, Striated thornbill, Weebill, Blue
faced honeyeater, Little friarbird, Noisy
friarbird, Noisy miner, Spiny cheeked
honeyeater, White plumed honeyeater,
Yellow faced honeyeater, Spotted pardalote,
Striated pardalote, Diamond firetail, Golden
whistler, Grey shrike thrush, Eastern yellow
robin, Dusky woodswallow, White breasted
woodswallow, Australian magpie, Australian
raven
Coonabro Road
Superb fairy wren, Magpie lark, Pied
butcherbird, Willy wagtail
Manildra to Cudal
Brown falcon, Nankeen kestrel, Galah, Red
rumped parrot, Welcome swallow, Willy
wagtail, Magpie lark, Australian magpie,
Pied butcherbird
Creature of the Month
Giraffe-necked Weevil
Trachelophorus giraffa
do not have an angle in their antennae). The
species feeds exclusively on plants of the
genus
Dichaetanthera
(family
Melostomataceae) and wherever you find
these plants in the Madagascan rainforests, the
leaves show damage from feeding by the
weevil. The strange neck is elongated and has
a joint part-way along with the head (eyes,
antennae, mouth, etc) all located at the far end.
The species is sexually dimorphic with the
male having a neck three times longer than that
of the female and it is used to fight other
males. A BBC video, narrated by David
Attenborough, of males fighting and the
female making a safe haven for its eggs can be
seen at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNWjdA6uUo
Notices
Payment of Annual Subscriptions IS NOW
DUE and can be made by sending cheque or
money order made out to "OFNCS" to the
Hon. Treasurer, Dr Dick Medd, OFNCS, PO
Box 369 Orange NSW 2800.
The bizarre Giraffe-necked weevil of Madagascar
[photo: Vicki Glover]
Subscription rates:
Single member – $25
Each additional family member – $5
Concession rate (emailed newsletters) – $12.50
Concession rate (printed newsletters) – $25
Note: concession rate is for bona fide
pensioners and students only
This bizarre creature is yet another
Madagascan endemic. It belongs to the weevil
family Attelabidae (which unlike true weevils
_________________________________________
SEE MORE PHOTOS BELOW
Members pretending they have spotted something in Back Yamma [photo: the editor]
MORE PHOTOS FROM MADAGASCAR
Spiny Forest at Ifaty, with baobabs and Alluaudia sp (Didiereaceae) [photo: the editor]
The beautiful Coquerel's Sifaka, Propithecus coquereli [photo: Vicki Glover]
Sausage Tree, Euphorbia oncoclada (Euphorbiaceae) in the Ifaty Spiny Forest [photo: the editor]
___________________
This Newsletter is produced for OFNCS by the Honorary Editor, Murray Fletcher. Views expressed herein are not necessarily
those of the Society. Items should not be reproduced without permission of the Editor.