Simpson Desert main camp 23°42'S 138°26'E
Simpson Desert main camp 23°42'S 138°26'E
In July 1997 Gernot accompanied his friend Adele, then an ecology PhD student at Sydney Uni, on a field trip to the Simpson Desert. The other members of the group were Debbie and Cameron.
This was one of three trips per year Adele took to the Simpson to
study
the lesser
hairy-footed dunnart, Sminthopsis youngsoni. Dunnarts
are mouse-sized, desert-dwelling, carnivorous marsupials,
and very cute. We trapped them at night (when they are
active and won't be killed by the heat in the traps), and tagged and
recorded them.
We tracked them by gluing tiny transmitters to their
back, and using the radio beacon to localise them every few
hours. In the photo on the right, the antenna, ending in a silvery
blob, can (barely) be seen protruding from the animal's back.
A small number of them got special treatment in the form of fluoro
tracking: We released them at night after dipping their behind in
fluorescent powder. They would then leave a trail of powder, which
we could later find using a UV lamp.
The trip had plenty of downtimes during the day (and interrupted sleep patterns at night), leading to all sorts of (sometimes rather silly) conversations, as well as the infamous radio tracking song.
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© Gernot Heiser 1997, 2021.