Australia's Wildlife

Hi! I'm Alex. Writing this blog about extinct, endangered, and interesting Australian animals. I'm a new wildlife rescuer and want to study something in ecology. Located in Central Victoria.

[ask-an-aussie]

Threatened species day

September 7th is threatened species day.

It marks the day the last Tasmanian Tiger died in a zoo in Hobart.

Today is a day to do something for threatened species, even just educating yourself on some of them.

Take time to reflect on the impact humans has on animals

[wildsideoflifeencounters]

Hardheads in flight

[tangledwing]

A long-nosed potoroo displays a light dusting of powder.The long-nosed potoroo (Potorous tridactylus) is a species of potoroo. These small marsupials are part of the rat-kangaroo family. Photograph: Lachlan Gilding/Aussie Ark

[wildsideoflifeencounters]

Noisy miner trying to scare off a kookaburra

[australiaanimalia]

this looks like a movie poster

[australiaanimalia]

†Bramble Cay Melomys (Melomys rubicola)

Photo: State of Queensland A tiny, 5 hectare sand cay just 50 kilometres from the mouth of Papua New Guinea’s Fly River is regularly greeted by flocks of brown boobies, terns, and nesting green sea turtles. Coral reef surrounds the isolated cay, which only reaches 3 metres above sea level. From the centre spreads a low herbaceous cover of predominately boerhavia albiflora and portulaca oleracea. But for almost ten years now, something has been missing. Perhaps clinging to driftwood, ancestors of the Bramble Cay Melomys floated across wide waters, or maybe were stranded by rising seas. However they arrived they made the guano dotted grassland of Bramble Cay their own, existing no where else in the world. Melomys is a genus of wet habitat rodents found across far north Queensland, New Guinea, and the Torres Strait. Measuring between 14 and 16 centimetres with a tail length to match, M. rubicola had small ears, big feet, and a thickly scaled tail with a prehensile tip. The fur was all russet grey except their paler grey underside.

Melomys rubicola was in serious decline in the late 20th century. Once described as a vast population of hundreds, a 1988 survey trapped only 42 mice and estimated just 93 individuals remained. In 2004, a replication survey trapped only 12. Increasingly severe weather inundated the island from 2004 onward. Extremes that, along with sea level rise, were a consequence of human-induced climate change. Though the precarious situation facing the survival of M. rubicola had been known for decades, it failed to attract wider attention or receive funding. A recovery plan was made in 2008, but wasn’t implemented. Finally, in 2014, after finding no melomys on the island, and the vegetation direly sparse, a team of researchers planned to return and conduct a large scale trapping operation to begin a captive breeding program. Unfortunately, when they returned, not a trace of an individual was found. Extreme weather caused the loss of vegetation which melomys relied on for food, so they likely starved. Many also probably drowned as a direct result of encroaching water during storms. M. rubicola was declared extinct by the IUCN in May of 2015. In early 2019, the Australian government recognised it as such, and the announcement made news globally, being reported as the first mammal extinction caused by anthropogenic climate change. Though awareness or action for the Bramble Cay Melomys came too late, conservationists hope a lesson can be learned; hesitation and complacency in the face of human-driven extinctions may be more catastrophic than we imagine.

[end0skeletal]

The Major Mitchell’s cockatoo is a medium-sized cockatoo restricted to arid and semi-arid inland areas of Australia. (x x x)

[wildsideoflifeencounters]

White-plumed honeyeater

[australiaanimalia]

Callocephalon fimbriatum the Gang-gang Cockatoo, in Hepburn Springs VIC

[electricnik]

London Zoo Thylacine….Animals magazine.

[birdstudies]

May 20, 2019 - Red-necked Stint or Rufous-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis)

Breeding in northeastern Russia and sometimes northwestern Alaska, these small sandpipers winter in parts of South and Southeast Asia, southern China, Australia, and New Zealand. They feed on insects, tiny seeds, plants, mollusks, and crustaceans, foraging in loose flocks. Laying their eggs in June, monogamous pairs nest in shallow scrapes lined with leaves or grass. Both parents incubate the eggs and care for the chicks. They are classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN due to population declines probably caused by habitat loss and pollution along their migration route.

[wildsideoflifeencounters]

Musk lorikeet

[australiaanimalia]

†Pig-footed Bandicoots (Chaeropus)

Pig-footed bandicoots were recently considered separate to all other bandicoots. Two similar species are recognized, varying in historical ranges and morphology of dentition and feet. Their fur ranged from uniform grey-brown to russet and fawn tones, helping them camouflage into arid sandy desert and grassland. From 32 to 40cms long, they measured up similarly to a small rabbit.

Chaeropus, uniquely, had feet like tiny hooves. They walked on only two functional toes of the forefeet, and one toe of the hind-foot, the rest being vestigial. They were known to run very fast, with a quick bounding gait. Though reported to eat insects, it’s thought they were largely herbivorous.

The Southern pig-footed bandicoot, C. ecaudatus, occurred through desert shrub-lands in the lower part of South Australia extending into Western Australia. C. yirratji, the Northern pig-footed bandicoot, inhabited grassland and sandy desert in central Australia and WA.

Both species were never prolific according to Indigenous oral tradition. However, they were in serious decline by the 19th century and were extinct less than 150 years after European description. Foxes were not yet established in their ranges, and though some cats were, the cessation of thousands of years traditional burning practices is thought to have been the major contributor to their extinction. Burning provided a patchwork of new growth on which to feed alongside recovered zones of shelter. Introduction of sheep and cattle also changed the landscape dramatically, further decimating crucial food sources of native animals.

[australiaanimalia]

Noisy Friarbird (Philemon corniculatus)

[make-do-and-mend]

How cute is my new neighbour. He’s set up house next to our backyard pond.

[wildsideoflifeencounters]

Blue-banded bees bedding down for the night.

[australiaanimalia]

Little pied cormorant fishing (Microcarbo melanoleucos)

[australiaanimalia]

†Gastric-brooding Frog (Rheobatrachus)

There were two species of Rheobatrachus, and they were pretty special. Their name refers to the unique way they incubated their young, different than any other known species of frog. Females swallowed fertilized eggs and once in her stomach acid production would cease, thought due to a chemical contained in the egg jelly. For at least six weeks, the mother ate nothing while the tadpoles developed inside her stomach, which would swell to an enormous size in the body cavity. She vomited them up as fully formed frogs!

They lived in streams and pools, being heavily aquatic. The rarer Northern species, R. vitellinus, occurred in rainforests of the Clarke Range in central eastern Queensland. These frogs were a dark pale brown, with slimy bumpy skin and vivid yellow patches along the underside. R. silus, the Southern frog, was recorded more frequently, living in the Conondale Ranges and Blackall Range in southeast Queensland. It was smaller, more grey in colour, had a cream underside, and dark brown limbs with yellow underneath. R. silus was kept in captivity until the early 1980s, being of great interest to the scientific community. Despite extensive searching none have been seen since 1981. In 1985 chytrid fungus was found in the range of the Northern gastric-brooding frogs, and many dead frogs of other species were observed. It is believed that the spread of chytrid was largely responsible for the extinction of both species.

In 2013, The Lazarus Project was successful in creating a living early-embryo containing DNA of R. Slius. The project hopes to “de-extinct” the Gastric-brooding frog by cloning.