PAPUA NEW GUINEA SNAKEBITE PROJECT
HERPING BY BACK-HOE

This morning we set out to search the young oil palm and nursery sections of Mamba Estates. There were four of us, Owen, Hayward the driver and our NBPOL security guard Eddie.

Owen, Hayward and Eddie outside the guest house, Hayward has Eddie's shotgun.

We walked the paths between the rows of palms while Hayward drove the main road, but without success. The habitat is perfect for New Guinea small-eyed snakes (Micropechis ikaheka) but we could use some of the promised rain to bring them out. Eventually we reached the nursery where we met Rombo, one of the managers who had attended our presentation the evening before. He was a transformed man and told us he had been telling all his wantoks that nonvenomous snakes like pythons should not be killed, that they were actually good to have around to catch rats. He said the best place for snakes were the overgrown banks at the end of the nursery.They were due to be levelled for redevelopment so we should use the back-hoe to take them apart and search for snakes. I called the field manager Bob Wilson, and he agreed, since they wanted the mounds gone, and the snakes with them. All we found were numerous Solomons forest skinks (Sphenomorphus solomonis), Wood frogs (Hylarana sp.), an unidentified microhylid (Copiula sp.), and lots of centipedes, oh and a large shed skin from a Southern white-lipped python (Leiopython hoserae).

Herping by back-hoe
Microhylid frog Copiula sp.	Solomons forest skink Sphenomorphus solomonis

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