The ACT’s new herp field guide!

Soon after moving to Canberra and meeting Brian, he told me he was keen to write a field guide to the herps of the area. He even started working on a rough draft that he shared with me in 2020. I, for the most part, was an unhelpful and unwitting potential coauthor. I was far too distracted by field herping and undergrad, so my contributions were minimal at first. It wasn’t until Chris Williams from the AHS approached Brian in late 2022 to author an ACT field guide with Reed New Holland as publisher that things really kicked off. Despite my total lack of help so far, Brian was still keen to have me involved. We rounded out the team with Bridget to make up for the lack of organisation and eye for detail we would otherwise struggle with.

With a draft submission due in April 2024, we had roughly a year and a half to compile all the necessary text and photos. During spring especially I focused less on writing and more on photos. While it doesn’t seem like there should be that many species that are hard to track down, several proved rather difficult. Notably, and for no particular reason, an Eastern Long-necked Turtle (Chelodina longicollis) evaded us for months and ended up requiring me to go for a swim in an urban mud pond late at night, and in the middle of winter. I narrowly avoided both frostbite and whatever nasties lurk in the Yerrabi Pond mud. Other honourable mentions for pains in the ass include local Common Dwarf Skinks (Menetia greyii), Red-throated Skinks (Acritoscincus platynotum) and Sudell’s Frogs (Neobatrachus sudellae). And then there were the species where we didn’t end up getting photos of in the ACT, but after much effort were found at least close by - Glossy Swamp Skinks (Pseudemoia rawlinsoni) and Tiger Snakes (Notechis scutatus). 

Alpine Blotchies (Tiliqua nigrolutea) are another hard to find species in the ACT. This beautiful individual adorns the contents section of the book. Naturally, after I’d fulfilled my duties as flash holder for Stephen it didn’t cooperate for one of my own photos.

Probably unsurprisingly, most of the writing happened within the last ~4 months. Nothing like a deadline for motivation. Bridget put in some hard yards at the end to turn it into a readable document, and together she and Brian also finalised the maps (which we forgot to include in the initial submission, whoops!). Then it was almost a year long wait until we had proofs, followed by repetitive slogs constantly rereading the text to find new errors every time. I can be easily blamed for consistently missing spelling mistakes in my own writing. But at long last in June of this year (2025) the final proof was in and it was only a (relatively) short wait to see physical books. Of course, we couldn’t have done it by ourselves. There are many people that should be thanked (and hopefully all are in the Acknowledgements section!), but to reiterate here we are particularly indebted to Matt Clancy, Nick Gale, Naomi Laven, Stephen Mahony, Ben Scheele, Gavin Smith, John Wombey, and Stephen Zozaya. I also need to thank Brian for involving both Bridget and I as coauthors, I’m still not quite sure why he did after my complete lack of usefulness with the previous draft.

Brian and I spent far too long over too many visits in this alpine swamp trying and mostly failing to find Glossy Swamp Skinks (Pseudemoia rawlinsoni) and Alpine Water Skinks (Eulamprus kosciuskoi). Brian personally suffered many stings from the abundant bull ants as well.

Some might disagree with the inclusion of specific species within the book. Both Cryptoblepharus species are certainly not found naturally in the ACT, and only turn up as rare translocations. Others were only included because they might once have been present (at least according to records from the early 1900’s), such as adders and pythons. Nevertheless, I think they’re important to include for contextual reasons, and to illustrate the impacts of translocations and land-clearing driven extirpations. Another small subset only barely make it into the territory, and are known from few if any records. They’ll certainly be good days when we finally turn up ACT Yellow-faced Whipsnakes (Demansia psammophis) and Bandy-bandy’s (Vermicella annulata).

We were all beginning to worry what Tiger Snake (Notechis scutatus) photos we’d use for the book. Then we ended up seeing two in about two weeks just over the border. We shall hopefully be redeemed with an ACT one soon.

Hopefully the three of us will be able to find any of the species we missed in the ACT over the next few years. With a bit of luck we might be able to provide an updated edition at some point with these photos, as well as any taxonomic changes. I’d be personally very happy (and Brian would probably transcend) if we could publish a version with only ACT photos (where possible). The largest taxonomic update will be the Litoria genus split, which dropped just as we were signing off on the final proof for the book and therefore couldn’t be included. Not that I was particularly upset by that, I’m not the biggest fan of all the new genera. Actually, maybe I won’t update that. Anyway. If you do happen to get a copy of the book and notice any mistakes (I’m sure there are plenty), please do let us know! We’re all very keen to fix any of the errors we made. Finally, if you do want a copy, I think most QBD’s and Dymocks will have copies for a while (well at least in Canberra they do). Alternatively, you can always get one from us and we can sign it, or not, with whatever message you choose.

So would I go through the hassle of writing another book? Strong maybe, verging on never at times.