With Spencer Shaw
DID you know that it’s not just in the wild places, but in the towns and even busy urban streets, that we can find rare and threatened plants and animals?
When establishing Forest Heart Eco-Nursery Maleny, we found Three-toed Snake-toothed Skink’s Coeranoscincus reticulatus. This amazing skink grows to about 50cm and is distinguished by its colouring (white and brown bands on the juveniles and varying shades of brown to grey on adults) and by its very small limbs which only have three toes on each foot. Counting three toes on these guys is tricky however, as they are so small that a magnifying lense, steady hand, patient skink and a good eye are crucial!
This exciting find showed just how resilient some our native plants and animals are, when we provide them with the connectivity to move through the landscape and suitable habitat to live in. In the case of the Three-toed Snake-toothed Skink they a require deep layer of leaf litter to provide them with the humidity, shade, protection and their food sources such as worms, grubs and small insects. The revegetation projects that have returned forest to the banks of the Obi Obi in Maleny have provided both habitat and connectivity for not only the Three-toed Snake-toothed Skink but many other fauna and flora.
To create a deep mulch quickly that is beneficial for not only our long-named lizard, but a whole range of ground dwelling fauna (and all the critters that feed on them) mulch your new plantings with a deep mulch between 100 -200mm thick. You can use bale mulch or chip mulch, just use plenty of it. Then make sure there are plenty of fast growing pioneers in your plantings such as Bleeding Heart Homalanthus populifolius, Native Mulberry Pipturus argenteus and Macaranga Macaranga tanarius. Density and diversity in your plantings will enable the development of a mulch layer to feed the soil and save critters such as the Three-toed Snake-toothed skink from a fate worse than death, extinction…
