Victor Valley College Tropical Research Initiative
Herpetofauna of Timor-Leste
Phase IV

Dili, Dili District

On the 3rd February Hinrich received a phone call to say the Foreign Minister would like to meet us and learn about the the Timor-Leste Reptile and Amphibian Survey. On the morning of the 4th the meeting was confirmed so we droveto the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and met up with our friend Claudia Abate, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister. Claudia took us through Security and after a short wait His Exellency Zacarias da Costa came into the room and spent a half-hour listening to our aims, objectives and results, and asked pertinent questions.

The team with Claudia Abate outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs	The team with Foreign Minister, Zacarias da Costa
Hinrich explains the project to His Excellency, Foreign Minister da Costa	The author discussing our new snake find with His Excellency,Foreign Minister da Costa
Click on images to enlarge

In the afternoon we went to "Downtown Dili" for a spot of shopping before the expedition wound down in readiness to leave the country the following morning.

The bridge into Dili from Comoro where the Timor Lodge Hotel is located.	UN Police vehicles are everywhere, at least until 2012 when the UN are due to begin leaving.
The Palacio do Governo.	The Tais Market where tapestries and carvings can be purchased.
Click on images to enlarge

We then returned to the Timor Lodge Hotel and met Hinrich who returned with six Chinese pond turtles (Mauremys reevesii), a species introduced to Timor-Leste by Chinese traders in the 1960s. The group included a melanistic specimen, a male in breeding colors, indicating that the population is most likely self-sustaining. The turtles had been purchased by a Chinese woman who planned to release them to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We released the turtles into a kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica) paddy in Dili, not wanting them to spread further outside the town.

We always seem to have something living in our shower at TLH, in 2010 it was three large pythons so six turtles is an improvement, although next time it might be a 3.0 m crocodile!
Chinese pond turtle Mauremys reevesii normal colour phase	Chinese pond turtle Mauremys reevesii melanistic male

The remainder of the day was occupied with gradual packing of kit and the making of an inventory of equipment being left in Dili for Phase V, scheduled for July 2011.

The following day we left Timor-Leste for our home countries, but our departure from Dili and our visit to Singapore were not without incident and the interested reader is referred to the blog written at the time.