PhD

15 months after starting my PhD, over the long weekend I got to see my first goanna in Australia, a bandy bandy, and a blind snake!

I’m writing this from my house in Canberra. A several weeks ago, we started hearing reports of the novel corona virus outbreak in Hubei province of China. Today, the virus, now known as COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) has swept across the world and the number of infections have continued to go up.

It’s been two months since I started my PhD here at the Australian National University! I’ve been reading quite a lot about Australian reptiles, especially elapid snakes (front-fanged venomous snakes). There are 107 terrestrial elapid snakes in Australia (according to AROD), which is a huge diversity, not to mention that many of the sea snakes are also elapids as well!

Arrived in Australia about three weeks ago (it’s winter) and here are some animals I managed to photograph… Kioloa, NSW [caption id=“attachment_692” align=“alignnone” width=“6000”] Tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides)[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_693” align=“alignnone” width=“6000”] Haswell’s frog_ (Paracrinia haswelli) _pair in amplexus[/caption]