Snowbound Herpetologist

We are settling back in nicely!  The biggest news of the month is two-fold: 1) Maya is getting a bunch more teeth, so I've updated her tooth chart (and will keep updating - there are at least two more on the horizon).  Of particular interest, her lower lateral incisors, which were supposed to appear ages ago, are just now coming in at 17 months :) Also, 2) we decided to ride the wave of a bunch of adjustments in the return to Michigan (and daycare) and night wean/sleep train Maya.  I had been avoiding "sleep training" with every fiber of my being, insisting on waiting until I thought Maya was old enough that she could both understand that she's "supposed" to be sleeping through the night (and we could have discussions about it) and also that she really didn't *need* to nurse.  The idea of leaving a tiny baby who's legitimately hungry or thirsty to scream for hours alone in a crib seems awful to me, and I simply refused to do it no matter how tired I...

We're back!  Jetlagged (again), but back.  No time to post anything long yet, but I did want to finish off the trip blog posts with a photo and video of the final lizard captured on the trip, our third (!!) species of Tiliqua , this one caught in our final pass through the Goldfields on our way back to Perth (which is why we're all in jackets - it was cold!).  I *adore* these skinks. So happy to be home! Maya thought the antipredator tongue display was pretty neat :)

It's official - we have successfully completed our field season!  We caught a ton of awesome squamates, had no major issues (besides one slightly bogged vehicle and one horrifying baby faceplant - ironically occurring after the return to civilization, which is way more dangerous with its ill-placed coffee tables than the great outdoors!), and are slowly working our way back home towards the daunting mountain of rust-stained laundry I have to try to salvage that’s been completely permeated by red Australian dirt.  Tomorrow we leave Kalgoorlie, which has been serving as our inland staging ground, and head back to Perth.  We’re spending a few days catching up with friends there, and then we’re off on the epic set of plane flights back to the North Country.  If I can get them to load, here are a few low res photos from some of the time we spent on the second leg of our collecting trip at Shark Bay (a UNESCO World Heritage site!).  Although it was indeed gorgeous, ...