Henri is our reptile guy. I knew him as the ‘star wars jumper guy who sometimes appeared’ as I didn’t realise he was always out at night looking for nocturnal reptiles!
He had some leaf-tailed geckoes (Uroplatus phantasticus) which had the most AMAZING TAILS! Like they looked like dead dried leaves so if you just saw the tail you would 100% think it’s a leaf. Then he was calling them fantastic and I was like ‘YES THEY ARE FANTASTIC’ like a big doofus, but it turns out their common name is fantastic (phantastic) leaf-tailed gecko OR BETTER YET – THE SATANIC LEAF-TAILED GECKO. ummmmm WHAT? Just all the things blowing my little mind. They were releasing them back into the rainforest, so Henri popped him on a lower branch so I could get some excellent pics! They were just so fascinating to look at – I couldn’t get over the fact how much it really looked like a leaf. There were two of these guys, and you can see in the pictures how different their colourings are. It’s so frickin cool. I thought they were two amazing species of gecko, but turned out that are BOTH FANTASTIC SATANS!
He also had some brown leaf chameleons (Brookesia thieli) to release as well which were cool little creatures. They were small but looked tough and I loved watching their eyes moving around all over the place. This guy didn’t really move at all, so I just have about 10000000 photos of him in the same pose.
On another day I went with Henri to search for globe-horned chameleons (Calumma globifer) which are classified as Endangered due to habitat destruction 😦 Henri had been out the night before spotting them so they had a rough idea of where they were. I saw two! They are very very cool, one of the ones we saw was bright green! I had seen a couple during our mouse lemur night time adventure a few nights ago, but I was so overwhelmed with seeing so many things, that I had no idea what was what.
THE EYES! Watch the video below of the green guy slowly very slowly slowly creeping away but keeping and eye on me THE WHOLE TIME. Like I’m some dodgy kid stealing lollies from the corner store hahaha. Chameleons move and sway to mimic the branches and leaves around them when it’s windy which is what this guy is demonstrating (whilst watching me).
Then they were like, do you want to see another gecko? I’m like, ummm of course? How is this even a question? SOOOO we went down the hill and into the forest (of course) and they pointed out a mossy leaf-tailed gecko. Ok so they were pointing and I could see branches. Cool guys, but where’s the gecko? THEN IT BLEW MY MIND WHEN I SAW HIM! I’d seen them in pictures but in real like, OMG. Like actually is like part of the branch, it was actually ridiculous. I couldn’t actually get over it hahaha. Yes I’ve said actually about three times, but it’s worth it for my explaining of my situation.
I tried to get good close ups but since my other camera broke, I only had my other camera and I FORGOT MY MACRO LENS AT CAMP cos I’m stoooopid. So I did the best I could, they’re not the best photos, but they will have to do. It was fascinating how the feet and tail and everything blended in so well, I don’t even know how the guys even found it in the first place at night time! (MAGIC MALAGASY EYES).
Afterwards we went for a long hike to see one of the areas that had recently been burned by the locals. The long-standing practice known as tavy involves the burning and felling of trees for use in making charcoal, and persistently scorching the cleared land to maintain rice plantations. (Read more here.)
I actually thought it was only going to be like a 10 minute walk there but like an hour later, we arrived. It was very very sad to see, it was a huge area that you can see used to be a forest. There’s some new growth there, but it is going to take a very very long time for it to recover that area. This is why our reforestation program is so important, so we can use the native species from the rainforest to reforest these areas that have been destroyed. We’re launching a new program later this year – so stay tuned!
The guide was like, we can get closer to the other area pointing to the other mountain on the other side, which would equal us walking down the hill then back up again, then back down and back up again sooooo we didn’t go to the second site. (phew cos I was pretty dead). But see the photo below of what the surrounding areas that haven’t been burned look like. It’s so ridiculously GREEN!
Other reptile frens I saw:
