Season movement and distribution of the sexes in the water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, in the Northern Territory

1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 399 ◽  
Author(s):  
DG Tulloch
Keyword(s):  
Breeding Season ◽  
Water Buffalo ◽  
Bubalus Bubalis ◽  
Black Soil ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Coastal Plains ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Northern Portion

Regular aerial and land surveys of the coastal plains and adjoining high ground in the northern portion of the Northern Territory between the Adelaide and Wildman Rivers showed variations in the number of buffalo on the plains. When there were very few buffalo on the plains there were large numbers on the adjoining high timbered country. During the wet season the plains flooded to varying depths and in those areas where the water was very deep all buffalo moved to higher ground. In the Northern Territory the wet season is the main breeding season, and at this time adult bulls were seen with cows in oestrus. During the dry season, which is the non-breeding season, the bulls and cows inhabited separate areas; the cows and their calves preferred those areas of the black soil plains adjoining high ground where there was water, shade, and some green feed. When rain fell at the end of the dry season, the buffalo moved to areas where it had rained.

The Water Buffalo, Bubalus Bubalis, in Australia: Reproductive and Parent-Offspring Behaviour.

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 265 ◽  
Author(s):  
DG Tulloch
Keyword(s):  
Breeding Season ◽  
Water Buffalo ◽  
Bubalus Bubalis ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Family Group ◽  
The Family

Water buffalo in the Northern Territory of Australia have a well defined breeding season in the wet or very early dry season. The birth of a calf is of major importance for the clan and for the family group of which that clan is a part. A number of calves are left in the care of an adult while their mothers go to graze. The female calf remains with its mother for many years, possibly for life, but at 2-3 y old the male calf is driven from the group by an adult bull when a cow in the group comes into oestrus. Most buffalo cows will readily adopt an orphan calf and within 8 days it is impossible to distinguish between the orphan and the group calves.

Thinking honeyeater: nectar maps for the Northern Territory, Australia

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Z. Woinarski ◽  
Greg Connors ◽  
Don C. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Northern Territory ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Nectar Production ◽  
The World ◽  
Eucalypt Forests ◽  
The Times ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Nectar Availability

We create monthly maps of nectar availability for the 1.4 x 106 km2 jurisdiction of the Northern Territory, Australia. These are based on a combination of vegetation mapping and a series of indices of plant species specific nectar scoring. The maps reveal complex spatial and temporal variation in nectar availability, but most notably a greater nectar resource in the monsoon-influenced north than in the arid south, and a peak in nectar availability in the dry season. The latter is associated with the extensive tropical eucalypt forests (especially those co-dominated by Eucalyptus miniata and E. tetrodonta). In contrast, wet season nectar availability in these forests is limited, but riparian and swampland forests, typically dominated by Melaleuca species, provide rich but spatially restricted nectar resources. The extensive and rich nectar resources available in eucalypt forests in the dry season supplement the diets of many species which are not primarily nectarivorous. This resource helps shape the singularity of northern Australian eucalypt forests relative to other extensive forests elsewhere in the world. Nectarivores remain in the system through a combination of movements across a number of scales, habitat shifting, and diet shifting. The latter is aided by the peaking of invertebrate and fruit resources at the times of minimum nectar production; a shuffling in resource availability brought about by the extreme climatic seasonality.

A Study of Reproduction in Water Buffalo in the Northern Territory of Australia.

1981 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 335 ◽  
Author(s):  
DG Tulloch ◽  
A Grassia
Keyword(s):  
Pregnancy Rate ◽  
Water Buffalo ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Dry Season

Data were obtained on 1094 females and 859 males killed at an abattoir, and 135 females and 32 males shot in the field. The data indicated that cows calve during the late wet or early dry season, after a pregnancy of 10-11 months. Age at 1st conception averaged 28.5 months; puberty occurred at 14-19 months. Pregnancy rate was 76% for the abattoir sample; it was <5% for females aged less than or equal to 3 yr. Bulls were probably fertile for 8 months of the year, the infertile period occurring during the 2nd half of the dry season.

Second Report of the Tsetse-fly Investigation in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria

1924 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Llewellyn Lloyd ◽  
W. B. Johnson ◽  
W. A. Young ◽  
H. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Breeding Season ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Tsetse Fly ◽  
Trypanosome Infection ◽  
Wet Season

This report contains a record of the trypanosome infections, food and breeding of G. morsitans and G. tachinoides obtained by examining the flies at various foci over a period of fourteen months.It confirms the fact that the breeding of both species is practically confined to the dry season and follows a period of increased food supply. G. tachinoides is well fed through the rains, except in one month of flood, and starts breeding as soon as the rains cease, owing to its habit of feeding on reptiles. G. morsitans starts free breeding about six weeks later, as its increased food supply is due to the ungulates becoming more available.G. morsitans does not feed on reptiles, but in times of hunger draws a proportion of its food from birds, the largest proportion recorded being 17 per cent, in one month at one focus. It draws the bulk of its food in this locality from small antelope, large game being scarce. G. tachinoides is much less specialised in its diet, and in the wet season nearly one-fifth of its food was drawn from a group of animals which included man, monkey and dog.The infection of the flies with T. vivax and T. congolense bears a close relation to the amount of blood obtained from antelope, and consequently morsitans is in general nearly four times as heavily infected as tachinoides. Infections with T. brucei and T. gambiense are scarce in this locality. Trypanosome infection rises just before the main breeding season in morsitans in all localities and in tachinoides in places where the fly is largely a mammal feeder. The proportional infection in general falls in the season of most rapid breeding, owing to masking of the actual rise by the number of young flies examined. It rises rapidly when breeding ceases. The total infection is reduced when fly food is hard to obtain, in the time of long grass and flood, owing to T. vivax infections dying out when the flies are starved.It is shown that in some cases T. grayi may be obtained by tachinoides when it feeds on Varanus, and a somewhat similar infection in the laboratory may be obtained by feeding the flies on toads.It is shown that in some cases T. grayi may be obtained by tachinoides when it feeds on Varanus, and a somewhat similar infection in the laboratory may be obtained by feeding the flies on toads.There is just an indication that postponement of grass burning may interfere with the free breeding of morsitans and in some cases that of tachinoides. This possibility is to be tested.The experiment of excluding game and pig from one of the dry season foci of the flies by means of fencing will be carried out.

Distribution and Abundance of Ducks in the Alligator Rivers Region, Northern Territory

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 573 ◽  
Author(s):  
SR Morton ◽  
KG Brennan ◽  
MD Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Northern Territory ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Correction Factors ◽  
The South ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Aerial Surveys ◽  
Black Duck

Aerial surveys between 1981 and 1984 were used to identify monthly trends in the abundance of wandering whistling-duck Dendrocygna arcuata, plumed whistling-duck D. eytoni, radjah shelduck Tadorna radjah, Pacific black duck Anas superciliosa, and grey teal A. gibberifrons on five floodplains of the Alligator Rivers region, 250 km east of Darwin in the monsoonal north of the Northern Territory. Ground surveys were conducted during the same period on one of the floodplains, the Magela plain, to provide more detailed information. The Magela floodplain was inhabited by few ducks during the wet season (November to March), but numbers then increased to dramatic peaks in the late dry season. The Nourlangie floodplain and Boggy Plain (a large backswamp of the South Alligator floodplain) showed similar patterns, but the numbers of ducks were usually fewer. Ducks were uncommon on the shallower East Alligator and Cooper floodplains except for relatively brief periods in the wet season. The ground surveys suggested that ducks sought out the persistent swamps that characterise the Magela floodplain in the dry season. Ground surveys also indicated that aerial surveys underestimated densities; on the basis of correction factors calculated from the ground surveys, peak numbers on the five floodplains were roughly estimated to be 400 000 wandering whistling-ducks, 70 000 plumed whistling-ducks, 20 000 radjah shelducks, 50 000 Pacific black ducks, and 50 000 grey teal. Pink-eared ducks Malacorhynchus membranaceus and hardhead Aythya australis were recorded sporadically in low numbers. The Alligator Rivers region acted as a dry season refuge for large concentrations of ducks because of the atypical persistence of freshwaters on the Magela and Nourlangie floodplains and some of the backswamps of the South Alligator, such as Boggy Plain. The large aggregations appear to be unique in Australia.

Dry-Season Distribution and Ecology of Carettochelys-Insculpta (Chelonia, Carettochelydidae) in Kakadu-National-Park, Northern Australia

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 323 ◽  
Author(s):  
a Georges ◽  
R Kennett
Keyword(s):  
Riparian Vegetation ◽  
National Park ◽  
Aquatic Macrophytes ◽  
Fine Sand ◽  
Black Soil ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Distribution And Ecology ◽  
Ecological Basis ◽  
Great Scope

Carettochelys insculpta is widely distributed (though not necessarily abundant) in Kakadu National Park during the dry season, occupying permanent billabongs from the black-soil plains to the base of the escarpment. High population densities were found in the upper reaches of the South Alligator drainage (33.8 turtles ha-1; 227.4 kg ha-1) and are interpreted as dry-season concentrations of turtles that would occupy a much wider range in the wet season. C. insculpta nest in clean, fine sand adjacent to water from mid July to early November. About 15 hard-shelled spherical eggs were laid in a shallow chamber (maximum depth 18-21 cm) between 1.0 and 3.7 m from water, with the height above water ranging from 0.4 to 0.7 m. The nests suffered heavy predation from varanid lizards. The turtles are general omnivores that draw upon a wide variety of food, including algae, aquatic macrophytes, fruits, seeds and leaves of riparian vegetation, aquatic macroinvertebrates, and carrion. Its catholic tastes provide great scope for opportunism, and its diet varies greatly in accordance with the foods available from locality to locality. The ecological basis for the restricted global distribution of C. insculpta is unclear since the species appears to have very broad habitat requirements.

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