No pay – no passage!
January 11th, 2012 | 
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A disturbing report of youths extorting $20 from pedestrians as a condition of passage across a well-used Cairns footbridge is not unprecedented. Civic leaders have refined the revenue-raising stratagem across the Daintree River and arguably inspired its replication in the leafy suburbs of Edge Hill & Manoora.
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A New Spider in the Daintree Rainforest?
Even seeing this amazing spider with its newly hatched brood is an achievement, but its identification is yet another challenge for Cooper Creek Wilderness and Daintree Rainforest. With his finely-tuned vision, Neil detected a shading on a leaf of the small-leaved fire vine Tetracera nordtiana, almost like a silhouette. He discovered the green camouflaged female spider and young blending in beautifully with its green surrounds.
Tags: 2011 The Year of the Anchiale briareus Stick Insects
2011 has been an extraordinary year. Following our wettest year on record in 2010 with 7.6metres of rain, we experienced dramatic creek changes. Australia’s largest recorded cyclone ‘Cyclone Yasi’ added to the squelch with 1.8metres of rain in February alone. Amazingly, Cheshire Constructions completed the Cooper Creek causeway and demonstrated its strength during these torrential downpours. Cairns Regional Council are to be congratulated on this achievement and also on the access road upgrade that has made it a great deal safer to drive to the Daintree Rainforest.
Orange-footed Scrubfowl Troubles
Orange-footed Scrub Fowls (Megapodius reinwardt) have developed an innovative nesting strategy that relieves them of the need for sitting on eggs. Residing within the same habitat as the Amethystine Python (world-champion at visualising the nocturnal infrared field), scrub fowls’ large heat-signatures would make them easy targets if they were required to sit on eggs for the full incubation period. In an extraordinary display of adaptive genius, scrub fowls have learned to stockpile leaf-litter into giant mounds, to harness the heat generated through the de-composition of that compost, to incubate their eggs.
Sticking in with the crowd – Anchiale briareus
In the Daintree Rainforest, blending into the landscape is core business for anything that is potentially bird-food. At a glance, the branch in the image (above) is unremarkable. Zooming in a little closer reveals a population of phasmids, successfully hidden from the vigilance of a multitude of avian dangers. How many can be seen?
