TIMOR-LESTE REPTILE & AMPHIBIAN SURVEY
PHASE IV: OUT TO THE ISLAND cont.

After three remarkably calm hours we reached Ataúro and the boat moored just off-shore from Tua Ko'in Eco-Resort, the same place we had stayed in 2010. We unloaded all the baggage and sorted out accomodation.

Tua Ko'in Eco-Resort.	Unloading at Tua Ko'in.
Click on images to enlarge

After we had settled in we set about to photograph and prep the remaining mainland specimens and prepared for a trip up to the village of Macadade on the slopes of Mount Manucoco by truck the following day.

Prepping specimens: David, Hinrich, Joanna, Paul, Kyle and Caitlin	Scale-counting blindsnakes: Laca, Luis, Zito and Benny

In the evening Scott, David, Zito and I went along the beach to some mangroves. We found several Common house geckos (Hemidactylus frenatus) and observed a curious escape mechanism, whereby the geckos hopped from rock to rock and then jumped into the seawater, only to wiggle-swim across the surface until they reached another rock or a branch of the mangroves. On our walk back we were startled by a crab racing across in front of us, pursued by a hungry rat. Crab-eating macaques and crab-eating snakes I am familiar with, but a crab-eating rat!