Editor : Don Hird. (email donald.hird@education.tas.gov.au )

Bulletin No. 308 (quarterly) October 2002

The Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club encourages the study of natural history and supports conservation.We issue our journal The Tasmanian Naturalist annually in October.People with a range of ages, background and knowledge are welcome as members.

Contact Genevieve Gates (6227 8638) for further information or write to GPO Box 68, Hobart, 7001.

Programme
General Meetings start at 7.45 p.m. on the first Thursday of the month, in the Life Science Building at the University of Tasmania. Outings are usually held the following weekend, meeting outside the to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery entrance in Macquarie Street. Bring lunch and all?weather outdoor gear.

If you are planning to attend an outing but have not been to the prior meeting, phone to check as to the timing of the excursion (with Genevieve Gates; 62 278 638 or Don Hird; 62 289 702).Unforeseen changes sometimes occur.

Thurs. 7 Nov.7.45p.m.:Greg Jordan will speak on the Paleobotany of Southern Continents.

Nov. ExcursionMeet at The Museum : Day (Sat. 9 or Sun. 10 Nov.) and Time TBA.

Thurs. 5 Dec.Members’ Night.Everyone is encouraged to make a short presentation on a natural history subject of personal interest for up to 10 minutes or so.

Dec. ExcursionA day or optional weekend in the Lime Bay area of Tasman Peninsula is planned for our final excursion for this year.Lime Bay isa fine venue for orchids and other coastal features in this intriguing area.The committee will provide a BBQ for those attending.

Jaunuary 2003.Following our usual custom, there will be neither a meeting nor excursion in January..

Do you have an email address?
Because it would be much easier to advise members of change of meeting times or excursions, or remind members about events by email, please email Anna at robmce@netspace.net.au of your address.

IF A LARGE X APPEARS ON YOUR ENVELOPE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION HAS EXPIRED !

Excursion Reports

New Town Rivulet - 6 July

This outing was a follow-up to the talk given by Jean Jackson from Inland Fisheries at our July meeting. Tasmania has 25 species of native freshwater fish, of which twelve are listed as threatened. There are also eight introduced species with wild populations.

Nine Field Natters defied the weather forecast and met at New Town Rivulet, near New Town High School, where Jean and her assistant Roger showed us how they use an electronic fisher. This discharges an electric current into the water, which temporarily stuns the fish, making it easy to scoop them up and bring them ashore for closer study. Jean and Roger covered about fifty metres of the creek, and then we inspected their catch, which consisted of:

·15 brown trout (Salmo trutta)

·1 jollytail (Galaxias maculatus)

·1 short-headed lamprey (Mordacia mordax)

The fish were all fairly small - the largest trout was about 15 cm. The jollytail was about 60mm long, which is about half the length that many of them grow to. The lamprey was a juvenile, about 50mm in length.Lampreys are notable for being among the few surviving jawless vertebrates.

Jean said that this catch was typical of what might be found in any freshwater creek in Tasmania. She said that most creeks around Hobart, unless they were very polluted, would contain similar populations. Several passers by stopped to have a look at what we were doing, and were ah` ( hear that these fish had come out of the creek.

After we'd had a good look, the fish, which by now seemed to have recovered from their 'shocking' experience, were released back into the creek, and we all went home for lunch. If you're interested in reading more about Tasmania's freshwater fish, Inland Fisheries has a series of Fact Sheets on their website at www.ifc.tas.gov.au and DPIWE has information about the threatened species on their website at www.dpiwe.tas.gov.au (choose water, then water resources).

Warra Long-Term Ecological Research Site Warra Long-Term Ecological Research Site 18 August 2002
For National Science Week, the Tasmanian Field Naturalists invited the publicdown to the forests to Warra for a ‘day out with the living dead’. Warra is a long-term ecological research site situated between the Huon and Weld Rivers, on the road past the Tahune Air Walk. 11 field nats plus a few UTAS students and other keen enthusiasts, 26 in total attended. We first stopped at Manuka Road for a brief introduction about the various research trials run by Forestry Tasmania. Simon explained one particular trial, which investigates alternative harvesting methods to the current clear-fell burn and sow. This particular trial retained 10% of the overstorey within a logged coupe, that is 10% of the Eucalyptus obliqua trees are left standing after the coupe has been harvested, and these these trees act as seed nurseries and habitat for biodiversity such as fauna dependent on hollows. Also at this stop, some of the younger field naturalists spotted some Common froglets (Crinia signifera) in puddles along side the road.

We then drove down to one of my field sites’ (on Manuka Rd). There we scrambled down the slope into an unlogged wet sclerophyll forest (Eucalyptus obliqua). We peered, prodded, picked and prised apart white and brown rotted wood from decaying logs and stumps. We collected a range of invertebrates varying from pill millipedes to the primitive collembola. We found a colony of Prostomis atkinsoni residing in the red muddy clayey rot in the heartwood of a log. A list of the saproxylic (dead wood) animals collected is given below. We observed them under a microscope, and watched a Lissotes sp. larvae chomp at a passing earth worm whilst in the collecting jar. Some field naturalists collected fungi, and a list of those is given below, and some collected mosses.
In addition to looking inside rotting logs, we visited the log decay study, set up by Forestry Tasmania. Here, we saw an impressive field experiment where trees of different size diameters have been felled, and enclosed in shade cloth. These traps are placed all along the log with collecting bottles at the top and bottom of each trap enclosure. The aims of this research are to study the succession and biodiversity of saproxylic communities, from the moment a tree falls until it has decomposed. Animals that colonise the log, feed, and complete their lifecycle within the log, will emerge and be collected in the bottles located at the top and bottom of the trap.
Towards the end of the day, Kevin Bonham found a rare snail and the invertebrates collected earlier were were returned back to their rotting habitats.

FUNGI

Pseudobaespora sp.-pale pink

Collybia “dry red”

Mycena sp., greyish with dark brown pointed umbo and white decurrent gills.

*Stereum ostrea

Clitocybe clitocyboides

Mycena kurramulla

Galerina patagonica

Hypholoma fasciculare

Lactarius eucalypti

Mycena pura

Gymnopilus sp.

Entolomasp., small, grey.

*Tremella fuciformis.

Zelleromyces daucinus.

Discinella terrestris.

Cheimonophyllum sp.

Stereum rugosum.

Psathyrella echinata.

Panellus stipticus.

Cortinarius sp.
White ascomycete on wood, bruising orange

*Calostoma fuscum

* Fungimap records.

COLEOPTERA

CARABIDAE Scopodes sp.

CARABIDAE Ambleytelus sp.

CARABIDAE Notonomus politus

*CARABIDAE larvae unknown

*LUCANIDAE Lissotes sp.

*ELATERIDAE ANTHOINAE larvae PROSTOMIDAE Prostomis atkinsoni

TENEBRIONIDAE Adelium ?abbreviatum

TENEBRIONIDAE Coripera deplanata

TENEBRIONIDAE Brycopia sp.

CURCULIONIDAE indet weevil

Unknown larvae

MYRIAPODA

PILL MILLIPEDE

COLLEMBOLA

primitive collembola

ISOPTERA

Porotermes adamsoni

* were found occurring in their larval form

Grasstree Hill Outing : October 2002
This outing was to Grasstree Hill in the morning and then on to the marshes at Prospect House, Richmond, to look at frogs in the afternoon. Four of us started out along the fire trail from Risdon Brook Dam, noting with some surprise (we had no collecting gear with us) at least 6 species of fungi growing along the track and under the pine trees. As we climbed up the gradual rise through the dry sclerophyll we collated a list of 27 fungal species, which was quite amazing. This list included four Fungimap species, which was more than we had seen for a while. We also saw a beautiful jade green beetle, the size of a Christmas beetle on a sedge leaf with the blue of Comesperma volubile entwined looking very photogenic but of course we had no camera. Kevin disappeared about halfway up Grasstree Hill to look for a snail with a very specific habitat and Don, David and I kept on going hoping to reach the top by lunchtime and be back at the car by 1.30pm. We had to cut short the ascent and we did try but it was a bit past 2pm when we hit the road to Richmond.
As we rolled up the drive to Prospect House we could see the Field Nats gathered around Karyl Michaels and her offsider who was explaining the frog species we have in Tasmania and their frog calls. As there are only 11 species this didn’t take too long and after a frog quiz where we had to work out the species in a plastic bag we were sent off to follow the froggy sounds which, like those of crickets, disappear as you get close to them. The frog tally was 0 (although Crinia signifera was heard), so it was fortuitous that some live specimens had been previously collected. Actually, Don had found a dead brown tree frog at the Risdon Brook Dam. I would like to thank Karyl and her friend for introducing us to frogs and frog mapping - another facet of Natural History for us to observe on excursions.
Orchid List
Pterostylis pedunculata
Diuris sp.
Caladenia fuscata
Snail tally – 5 species
Fungi List (* indicates Fungimap target species)
At Risdon Brook and Grasstree Hill:

Suillus luteus

Coprinus sp

Agaricus sp.

Pycnoporus coccineus

Trametes versicolor

*Oudemansiella radicata (star of the day - 6 sightings)

*Bolbitius vitellinus

Laccaria sp.

Byssomerulius corium

Phlebia sp.

Psilocybe sp.

Puffball, Bovista type.

Hygrocybe aff coccinea

Heterotextus miltinus

Hexagona gunnii

Psathyrella sp.

Conocybe sp.

Psathyrella sp, dark chocolate brown as at Junee Cave

Hygrocybe sp., concolourous orange and glutinous new species

Entoloma sp. “orange splotch”

Inocybe sp.

*Omphalina chromacea

*Tremella mesenterica

Melanotus hepatochrous

Order Dacrymycetales - flat yellow jelly discs

Family Tricholomataceae - “Rhodocybe look alike”

At Prospect House:

*Marasmius elegans

Report by Genevieve Gates

Recent misinformation on 1080
Amid the ongoing tabloid controversy, truth continues to be a frequent casualty in the 1080 saga.
Recent examples includes a Paul Lennon classic; that Tasmanian 1080 usage is somehow OK because NZ uses more.The fact remains that NZ does use more, but only because it has more, and especially much larger, introduced pest species, and no indigenous mammals susceptible to 1080. Tasmania, by contrast, has susceptible non-target indigenous mammal species, e.g. potoroos, which despite their “protected” status are subject to 50 million lethal doses of 1080 per annum in Tasmania.
Another is that 1080 is not cruel because “we can’t know the victims’ state of mind” !Certainly their symptoms of distress are manifest.The RSPCA examined this issue in its 1987 book Incidence of Cruelty to Wallabies in Commercial and Non-commercial Operations in Tasmania, concluding, on page 118 “it is recommended that the use of 1080, strychnine or other poisons to kill wallabies be banned”.
Mr Lennon claims that most scientists accept 1080 use.The fact is that the RFA utterly ignored the obvious issue of collateral damage to non-target species, despite forestry industry’s frequent claims to manage forests for multiple uses.Few salaried scientists have said anything on this issue; most are apparently strenuously sitting on their hands.

Some opponents of 1080 also continue to exaggerate.E.g. the Greens’ website claims that “anything eating carrots (laced with 1080) will be poisoned”.This is a fallacy.Some vertebrates and all known invertebrates are not susceptible to the enzyme-blocking toxic effect of 1080 / carrot baits.We don’t need this contrived controversy.

The overall case for a 1080 ban is compelling, as outlined in earlier Bulletins.

Don Hird

TFNC LIBRARY -Recent Acquisitions
Jackson, Jean.Natural Wonders of Tasmania’s World Heritage Area. Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park.Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, Hobart, 1996.
50pp. pbk. Line art illustrations. Purchased 14/3/02, Tasmanian Environment Centre Inc., $8.55.

A small, illustrated book for the lay reader, presenting some of the most interesting findings for Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park, from the World Heritage Area Baseline Studies program organised by Parks and Wildlife Service between 1990 and 1992. Includes index and references.

Paterson, Jim. A King Island Settler’s Tale.Self published, Hobart, 2001.
302 pp. Col photographs. Purchased from the author, 7/3/2002

Reminiscence, observation and description of an interesting island and a way of life gone by, from our club member, Jim Paterson.

Leaman, David. Step into History in Tasmanian Reserves. Leaman Geophysics, Hobart, 2001.
416pp. pbk. Line maps and diagrams; col photographs.Purchased 14/3/02, Tasmanian Environment Centre Inc. $31.45.

This is an extension of Leaman’s previous book, Walk into History in Southern Tasmania, this time covering the state’s parks and reserves.A geological overview provides a foundation before the book launches into detailed descriptions of walks within the state’s parks and reserves.Leaman covers anything from Federation Peak to the Creepy Crawly Nature Trail.In fact he goes into more depth for the shorter walks, and provides interesting historical and geological information for each area.The book contains a wealth of excellent photographs as well as a glossary, index and reading list.An interesting addition is an appendix discussing park and reserve management.

Richmond, Margaret H.Tasmanian Sea Shells Volume 2. Richmond Printers, Devonport, 1992.
111pp. Distribution maps and col photographs. Purchased TMAG, 14/3/02, $30.

This volume covers more of the marine molluscs commonly found on Tasmanian beaches, following on from the Volume 1 identification guide.265 Tasmanian beaches have been surveyed over an eleven year period. Each species is described, photographed and a locality map of known distribution (from the TMAG) provided.Includes maps, glossary and index.

Poole, Lyndel and Bennett, Michael. Hypolimnas bolina (Common Eggfly) Filmed at 16466 Tasman Highway, Llandaff, via Bicheno, 24^th March 2001.Video given to the TFNC.

Hypolimnas bolina is a large black butterfly.This is an unusual sighting for Tasmania, so watch the video and look out for the butterfly in summer and autumn.

Hawking, John H. and Smith, Felicity J. Colour Guide to Invertebrates of Australian Inland Waters.Identification Guide no 8.Co-operative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology, Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre, Albury, 1997.
213pp. pbk. Col photographs.Purchased from the publishers 1/5/02 $26.40 + $5 postage.

This field identification guide to freshwater invertebrates is designed for students, field ecologists, amateur collectors, fishermen and community riverwatch workers.It lists the invertebrates in taxonomic groups: the sponges, hydras, jellyfish, primitive worms; polychaets; segmented worms, leeches; freshwater snails and mussels; water mites; crustaceans,; and the bulk of the book is dedicated to the insects.Colour photographs of 200 of the more easily recognisable organisms aids with identification. Each section begins with features of the group, then broad classification.Descriptions go to family or genus level and include size; habitat; distribution; and trophic status, and the number of recorded speciesis given.Each section is colour coded for quick field reference.Includes references and glossary.

Beattie, Andrew and Ehrlich, Paul.Wild Solutions.How Biodiversity is Money in the Bank. Illustrated by Christine Turnbull.Melbourne University Press, 2001.
239pp. hbk.Ill. line drawings.Review copy.

This book explains with many examples, and in a very readable style, how biodiversity is valuable to us from a human point of view.Reviewed by Owen Seeman in The Tasmanian Naturalist no 123, 2001, p. 59.

Bryant, S and Jarman, Jean.Tasmania’s Threatenend Fauna Handbook: What, Where and How to Protect Tasmania’s Threatened Animals. Threatened Species Unit, Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania, 1999.
428pp. pbk. Ill. line drawings. Purchased DPIWE 12/7/02 $40
This book profiles every native species listed by mid 1999 on Tasmania’s Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 and the Commonwealth Endangered Species Protection Act 1992.Other species not listed but believed to be at risk are also included.The book is divided into three sections, the first identifies locations where threatened species occur, using a system of 1:25,000 Tasmaps.Section 2 profiles the listed animals, and the third section is a quick reference guide on broad habitat types.There is also a description of the specialist habitats of caves, and of Great Lake.

The spiral binding is a bit difficult on such a heavy volume.

Fenton, Janet.Where to Find Common Insects in Tasmania. Tasmanian Environment Centre, 1997.
29pp. pbk. Ill. b&w line drawings.

Prepared for schools for project work identifying insects by broad classification.Habitat type approach.Includes a key to the major terrestrial invertebrate groups.

Blood, Kate; CRC Weed Management Systems.Environmental Weeds: A field Guide for SE Australia. CH Jerram Science Publishers, 2001.
228 pp. pbk. Ill. col. photographs.Purchased CSIRO 29/7/02

A field guide divided into sections covering trees; shrubs; climbers and creepers; herbs and succulents; and grasses.Descriptions include notes on ecology, origin, habitat the weed is likely to invade, and how the plant spreads.Coloured photographs and distribution maps.Includes index.

Zabrowski, Paul.Insects of Australia. (Green Guide).New Holland, 2002.
97pp. pbk. Ill. col. photographs. Purchased CSIRO 29/7/02

This is not a field guide but an interesting introduction for those who are not already experts in entomology. Chapters are divided according to insect biology, habitat and behavior rather than taxonomy.This book will appeal to older children as well as adults. Includes an index and a checklist of Australian insect groups.

Gooderham, John, and Tsyrlin, Edward.The Waterbug Book: A Guide to Freshwater Macroinvertebrates of Temperate Australia. CSIRO Publishing, 2002
232pp. pbk. Ill. col. photographs and line diagrams. Purchased CSIRO 29/7/02

A field guide written with a refreshing touch of humour.The book is arranged by animal groups, and includes identification keys and a wealth of excellent photographs. The introduction includesan explanation of the SIGNAL system for water quality testing.The book finishes with references, glossary and index.

Wickham, Katrina Jane.A Case Study of Leisure Institutions:"The Tasmanian Field Naturalist Club".Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in the Department of Sociology University of Tasmania, November 1993.

Just the thing for those who want to read about Marxism and its utility for the study of clubs, or post-modern approaches to leisure institutions.A different genre from our usual field guides!There are some interesting snippets.Who knew that Leonard Rodway was in fact a dentist as well asgovernment botanist?

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