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Birds eye view

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Louise Edwards

As you can see in the photo this is an aerial photo. Yes, I was in the helicopter again. A helicopter allows the scientists to be dropped in and out of remote areas with ease. After 18mm of rain overnight the Gilbert River received some flows. According to Nic, the Park Ranger, this is because only some parts of the river system received rainfall. The hope is that this rainfall will bring out the native frogs over the coming days which means the scientists will be able to more easily survey them. After rising, we set off to check on the traps for small mammals, no luck today. But the video recordings from the previous night did show possums and a rock wallaby. The next adventure was over to Site L where we spent most of the day with Zoe, an amazing PhD student, looking for a carnivorous plant that contains a true bug she is studying, more on this when I’m back on campus as we have a video of Zoe talking all about her work. One really awesome thing that scientists do is to collaborate. This means that while in the field they know what each other are researching and therefore if they come across it then they will collect that sample for their colleague. Awesome! Zoe was able to help other scientists today by bringing back a scorpion and a cockroach, but not just any old cockroach, the worlds largest. Common name Giant Burrowing Cockroach (Macropansthia rhinoceros).