Life in the Cape York Rainforest

By Robert Heinsohn and Michael Cermak

The remote, beautiful and poorly known rainforests of Cape York Peninsula tell a special story about Australia’s historic and present-day connections to New Guinea. Life in the Cape York Rainforest highlights these connections by examining the fascinating biology of some of the most spectacular animals shared between the two regions.

The author recounts his own ground-breaking research on ‘cross-dressing’ Eclectus parrots, musical palm cockatoos and multi-coloured pythons, together with the exotic lifestyles of other animals, while painting the bigger picture of the past when Australia and New Guinea were joined by extensive land bridges. Australia’s disconnection from New Guinea is probably only temporary, and even today many bird species continue to fly the short distance between the two landmasses.

Whether just browsing the beautiful photos and informative captions, or reading it in its entirety, readers will gain a greater understanding of the unique attributes of our Cape York rainforests. The book provides an excellent resource for biologists and environmentalists with an interest in the Top End and New Guinea, tourists to Cape York, conservationists and policy makers, and amateur naturalists, especially ornithologists and herpetologists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Release date: Nov 3, 2008
• ISBN: 9780643102675

Book preview

LIFE IN THE

CAPE YORK

RAINFOREST

© CSIRO 2008

All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, duplicating or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Contact CSIRO PUBLISHING for all permission requests.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Heinsohn, Robert.

Life in the Cape York rainforest / Robert Heinsohn ;

photographer, Michael Cermak.

9780643095014 (pbk.)

Bibliography.

Rain forests – Queensland – Cape York Peninsula.

Animals – Queensland – Cape York Peninsula.

Birds – Queensland – Cape York Peninsula.

Cermak, Michael.

577.34

Published by

CSIRO PUBLISHING

150 Oxford Street (PO Box 1139)

Collingwood VIC 3066

Australia

Telephone: [phone]

Local call: 1300 788 000 (Australia only)

Fax: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Web site: www.publish.csiro.au

Front cover

Wings of the female Eclectus parrot (Photo: R. Seitre); adult green python

Back cover (clockwise from top left)

Male and female Eclectus parrots; green python; female New Guinea birdwing

All photographs are by Michael Cermak unless otherwise indicated.

Set in Optima and Myriad Light

Edited by Lee K. Curtis, ataglance.com.au

Cover and text design by James Kelly

Typeset by James Kelly

Printed in China by 1010

LIFE IN THE

CAPE YORK

RAINFOREST

TEXT BY ROBERT HEINSOHN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL CERMAK

A green python (Morelia viridis) changes colour (see Chapter 4).

Male Eclectus parrots look remarkably different from the females (see Chapter 5).

Growling green-eyed frog (Litoria eucnemis).

Rainbow skink (Carlia macfarlani).

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

THE SMUGGLER’S TREE

1. INTRODUCTION

CAPE YORK PENINSULA

2. THE CAPE YORK RAINFOREST

WHERE OLD AUSTRALIA MEETS NEW GUINEA

3. PALM COCKATOOS

THE SOUND OF DISTANT DRUMS

4. GREEN PYTHONS

CAPE YORK’S RAINBOW SERPENTS

5. ECLECTUS PARROTS

TRANSVESTITES IN THE TREETOPS

6. FROM NEW GUINEA

PERMANENT RESIDENTS AND TEMPORARY VISAS

7. CAPE YORK RAINFORESTS

TINY ISLANDS IN A CHANGING WORLD

EPILOGUE

DEATH OF A GIANT

FURTHER READING

APPENDIX

The fruit of a Monstera (Rhaphidophora australasica).

PREFACE

The seed for my Cape York adventures was planted by chance in 1989 on the opposite side of the world. As a young PhD student I was visiting Oxford University and had arranged to meet Professor Bill Hamilton, one of the ‘gurus’ of evolutionary biology. As I walked into his office he caught sight of the Eclectus parrot (Eclectus roratus) emblazoned on my t-shirt. He spoke very excitedly about the theoretical conundrums created by their strange ‘reversed’ colouration (bright red females, green males), and insisted repeatedly that someone simply had to do a field study on these remarkable birds. His excitement was contagious and I left his office feeling like I should rush off immediately to start the study. However, it was not until August 1997, under the auspices of an Australian Government Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship, that I first climbed the remarkable Smuggler’s Tree at Iron Range National Park on Cape York Peninsula (see Prologue). It was nine years later, after climbing the 40 nest trees in my study area about 90 times each (a combined height over 10 times the size of Mount Everest), when I finally declared the Eclectus parrot project complete.

This book was brought about by another chance encounter, this time with Michael Cermak at Iron Range National Park in 2004. I discovered that Michael not only shared my fascination with the New Guinean influences on Cape York Peninsula, but was actively capturing much of it in his beautiful photographs. Although the book idea was born in that first meeting, it took another chance encounter in 2006 for us to make it into a reality.

Many people helped over the long years of the Eclectus parrot research and played major roles in our other projects in the Cape York rainforest. We could not have lived and operated at Iron Range without the support of some very generous people. Peter and Emma Huybers were exceedingly kind in letting us use King Park as our research base, and Kevin Cameron built our wonderful accommodation (‘the humpy’). Brian Venables and Greg and Alice Daniels also provided accommodation to various members of our team. Our research would not have succeeded without the monumental contributions of Sarah Legge and Clare Blackman to the field work, and my PhD students Dave Wilson and Steve Murphy were magnificent in their approach and dedication to their