Roma Street Parklands

A Portfolio by Warren Bennett. Roma Street Parkland, CBD Brisbane.

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To the left - Golden Orb Spider.
Large black or dark bodied spiders with very long orange and black legs found through the day and night in large sticky webs sometimes with golden silk usually well above the ground.
Two smaller species, Nephila edulis and Nephila plumipes, look very similar but differ in that the latter has a conical bump near its mouth.
The largest species, the Giant Golden Orb, Nephila pilipes, has a strong golden web and boldly marked black legs with bright yellow joints. The normal sized and less ornate males are vastly dwarfed by the giant female.
Tiny unrelated Silver Dew Drop spiders (Argyrodes antipodiana) live in the web of the Golden Orbs and steal tiny insects trapped on the web of the host.

Three species occur in south-eastern Queensland.
The Giant Golden Orb is most numerous in the north but in warmer years the spiders are recorded as far south as Ipswich and even Coffs Harbour. The two smaller species - Nephila edulis and Nephila plumipes - are widespread.
Large circular vertical webs, often yellow, with a small tangle of old insect bodies on each side of the hub. These webs remain up during the night and day.
Not prone to bite; unsubstantiated records and its much vaunted ability to kill small birds suggest its bite is potentially of concern.

Species: Calliphoridae, commonly known as Blowflies, of which there are 1100 known species in Australia. This one is a Chrysomya megacephala.

We have all seen Blowflies at some point in our life, and most will have seen there young, maggots. Some members may have used the larvae as bait for fishing. However, a very important role of this strain is in Forensic Entomology.  

Blowflies are usually the first insects to come in contact with death.They have the ability to smell dead animal matter from up to 1.6 km away. Time of death is important in police investigations

and is determined very accurately by the  blowfly activity. 

Australian White Ibis, Threskiornis molucca, 67-75 cm

Some Australian White Ibis populations have learnt to exploit artificial foods in urban environments and.have become pests.

Their abundance however is decreasing in their natural habitat. The most favored foods are crayfish and mussels.

Blue Skimmer, Body length 4.5 cm, Wing span 7 cm.

All Damselflies have eyes that are apart and fore-wings and hind-wings of similar shape. Dragonflies are generally more robust. Most have eyes touching at the top of the head. The fore-wing and hind-wings are different in shape, particularly at their bases. There are 324 known Dragonfly and Damselfly species in Australia, all are predators catching insects on the wing and most devouring their prey whilst still in flight.Their forward facing leg spikes enable them to do this

Eastern Water Dragon, Physignathuis lesueuni, up to 800 mm in length.

Semi aquatic, hunts day and night for insects, frogs,yabbies, fruit and berries.This individual had been eating a duck egg ( picture of blowfly on the egg shell), after eating the contents of the shell the Water Dragon sat quietly about .5 of a metre away until the shell was covered in Blowflies at which time the dragon lunged at the shell capturing most of the flies in one gulp. Female lays between 10-20 eggs. away from water during Nov-Dec. Hatching takes place Jan-Feb.

Magpie Lark, Grallina cyanoleuca, 26-30 cm.

Magpie Larks aggressively defend their nest and territory which may occupy up to 10 ha.   The mud bowl nest can be up to 20 metres above ground on a horizontal branch. Nest lining is made up of grass and feathers. Non breeding and young birds partake in seasonal migration, forming large flocks, sometimes consisting of several thousand individuals, moving north in autumn and moving south in spring. 

Australian Stingless Bees.

There are 11 species of black stingless bees in Australia. Species Trigona carbonaria, has been used in experiments conducted at Macadamia plantations to see if they were effective in commercial pollination of this crop.

Results found that they were more effective than the honey bee in this regard. Honey bees were more interested in nectar collection and did not come in contact with as much pollen as the much smaller black native bee.

Other commercial crops pollinated by black bees are mangoes, watermelons and crops grown inside glasshouses. 

They build a resinous nest in hollow trees and man made hives. They are tropical so only live in warm areas of Australia. Sting less bees only produce small amounts of honey. Less than one litre per year per hive. 

Blue Banded Bees (Amegilla)

 Blue banded bees are one of our most beautiful Australian native bees. They are about 11 mm long and have bands of metallic blue fur across their black abdomens. Blue banded bees are solitary bees. This means that each female bee mates and then builds a solitary nest by herself. She builds her nest in a shallow burrow in clay soil or sometimes in mudbricks. Many blue banded bees may build their nest burrows in the same spot, close to one another, like neighbouring houses in a village. Blue banded bees can perform a special type of pollination called 'buzz pollination'. Some flowers hide their pollen inside tiny capsules. A blue banded bee can grasp a flower like this and shiver her flight muscles, causing the pollen to shoot out of the capsule. She can then collect the pollen for her nest and carry it from flower to flower, pollinating the flowers. Quite a few of our native Australian flowers require buzz pollination eg Hibbertia, Senna. Tomato flowers are also pollinated better when visited by a buzz pollinating bee. Researchers at the University of Adelaide are developing native blue banded bees for greenhouse tomato pollination. It would be much better for our environment to use our native blue banded bees for this purpose rather than to introduce foreign species to Australia. 

Dusky Moorhen, Gallinula tenebrosa, 35-40 cm

The Dusky Moorhen is a bird species in the Rail family and is one of eight extant (still in existence) species in the Moorhen genus. It occurs in India, Australia, New Guinea, Borneo and Indonesia. Behaviour of dusky moorhens (Gallinula tenebrosa) was studied during 666 h during 3 months ending in December 1976 near Canberra, Australia. Observations were that the young were fed intensively from hatching to about 4 weeks old then with decreasing frequency to 9 weeks old. Adults of the group of up to 7 birds transferred food to the beak of the brooding adult, which passed it to the young in the nest. Older juveniles approached adults carrying food, displaying a conspicuous yellow patch of skin on the wings, and pecked towards the yellow patch on the tip of the lowered beak of the adult. The young made pecking motions from a few days old but took no food for themselves until they were at least 10 days old. At any one time only 1 or 2 adults of the group took all food they found to the young; other adults fed themselves, and only occasionally fed the young. The young remained with the parents for 5 to 8 months. Adults sometimes fed other adults, the food being exchanged more than 20 times at some encounters. For the first few weeks after hatching the main food items were molluscs, annelids and insects; vegetable matter was included gradually as the young began to feed themselves.

Pacific Black Duck, Anas superciliosa, 48-60 cm.

This description is taken from Birds of New Zealand, F Soper, 1984, where it is called Grey Duck. Wide distribution, occurring and breeding throughout NZ, Kermadec, Chatham, Snares, Auckland, Campbell and Macquarie Islands. Elsewhere it breeds from Australia and New Guinea east to the islands of the central Pacific and north to Java and Sumatra.

Sexes alike.In settled areas, Grey Ducks are now outnumbered buy Mallards and in parks and city areas hybridise with them. In the back country, Gray Ducks remain the dominant dabbling duck .They lay smaller clutches than the Mallard, usually 6-10, and, as withall dabbling ducks, incubation (28 days) is by the female only. They feed by dabbling at the waters edge and by upending in the shallows, and they also eat such items as grain, acorns,grass seed and berries. they fly fast and spring off the water with a single leap.