NATURE'S PHARMACY As the torrid internal rivalries of the world’s oldest rainforest have played out longer than any other, so have adaptive strategies developed with ever-increasing potency and as every toxic product provides a protective purpose, no other ecosystem is as likely to reveal such a rich repository of| A Stray Liana
Many spiders expand their sensory reach through variable expressions of web construction , with the most expansive going to Giant Golden Orb-weaving Spider.| A Stray Liana
Amethystine Pythons - Morelia kinghorni (Stull, 1933) are vividly-white along their ventral surfaces and ambush is their most efficient predatory stratagem| A Stray Liana
Fantastic Fan Palms A lofty spire emerges from the head of a Fan Palm – Licuala ramsayi (F.Muell.) and radiates flamboyantly into a flawless circle of inspiring proportions. Zig-zagged channelling extends from the stem’s pleasing eccentricity to the enormous leaf’s periphery, giving the impression that the tremendous number of such fronds| A Stray Liana
The ventral surface of the Jungle Carpet Python - Morelia spilota cheynei (Wells & Wellington, 1984) is brilliant white.| A Stray Liana
The vibrancy of yellow, as a recurring rainforest theme, stands out with brazen distinction.| A Stray Liana
Protecting a Sacred-Site Asserted as much as a distinction of the natural environment, as a requirement of the inhabitant human mind, territorialism protects habitat integrity and its treasured repository of amassed memory. Areas of singularly invaluable memory, such as sacred birthing sites, are respected with the highest order of territorial| A Stray Liana
Hope's Cycad - Lepidozamia hopeii Growing at an estimated meter per century, the venerable Hope’s Cycad - Lepidozamia hopei (W.Hill) Regel, attains a potential height of twenty-metres across two-millennia. Reproducing about once every seven years, with both male and female plants producing large reproductive cones atop their axes, appears to be both| A Stray Liana
I heard my first Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher - Tanysiptera sylvia (Gould, 1850) for the year, today. It arrived from West Papua or Papua New Guinea to nest exclusively in the epigeal or terrestrial termite mounds of Microcerotermes serratus (Froggatt, 1898). Largely-symmetrical ellipsoid nests contain complex tunnels and chambers that regulate temperature, humidity| A Stray Liana
Treasured rainforest beauty The large and beautiful Macleay’s Swallowtail Moth - Lyssa macleayi (Montrouzier, 1856), is velvety-brown with bold white features, which are particularly prominent on the ventral surface in flight. It took me eight-years, however, searching every night into the depths of this ancient rainforest as a profession,| A Stray Liana