TIMOR-LESTE REPTILE & AMPHIBIAN SURVEY
GROUNDHOG DAY

I arrived at 07:45 on the morning of 16th July, hang on, I just spent 16th July on aircraft from Singapore to Tokyo and Tokyo to Honolulu so starting the same day again feels like Groundhog Day. Of course I have crossed the International Date Line and gained a day.

I was picked up from the airport by Pumehana Imada, Collections Technician at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum on Honolulu which was my first destination in the Hawaiian Islands. The Museum is only ten minutes from the international airport and once there I was shown around the collection, introduced to some of the staff, met up with Glenn Shea and Allen Allison, fellow herpetologists from Sydney and Honolulu respectively, and then shown to my accommodation, the guest cottage across the carpark.

It was at the cottage that I met my first (and probably only) living Hawaiian herp, Gold dust day gecko (Phelsuma laticauda), a Madagascan-Comoran Indian Ocean species introduced to the Hawaiian Islands.

The Bernice P Bishop Museum, Honolulu
The guest cottage	Gold dust day gecko, Phelsuma laticauda
My room, already cluttered with camera gear	The lounge and kitchen areas

After freshening up and sorting out email, cameras, downloading new fireware for my GoPro etc. I went back to the museum and began to examine and photograph the specimens I had come to see, primarily New Guinea elapids.

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