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Actaeon Island
The Actaeon Island, part of the Actaeon Island Group, is a dolerite island and game reserve located at the southern entrance to the D'Entrecasteaux Channel between Bruny Island and the mainland, that lies close to the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, Australia. The island is named for the ship , which wrecked there in 1822. There is a navigation beacon on the highest point, .Brothers, Nigel; Pemberton, David; Pryor, Helen; & Halley, Vanessa. (2001). ''Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: seabirds and other natural features''. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart. Actaeon Island Group The Actaeon Island Group consists of: * Actaeon Island * Blanche Rock * Courts Island * Southport Island * Sterile Island * The Friars * The Images Fauna Recorded breeding seabird and wader species are the little penguin, short-tailed shearwater and sooty oystercatcher. European rabbits occur on the island and seals occasionally haul-out there. The metallic skink is present. The endangere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D'Entrecasteaux Channel
The D'Entrecasteaux Channel is a body of water located between Bruny Island and the south-east of the mainland of Tasmania, Australia. The channel is the mouth for the estuaries of the Derwent and the Huon Rivers and empties into the Tasman Sea of the South Pacific Ocean. It was sighted by Abel Tasman in 1642 and surveyed in 1792 by Bruni d'Entrecasteaux. Towns on the D'Entrecasteaux Channel include Snug, Margate, Kettering, Woodbridge, Flowerpot, Middleton and Gordon. History According to ''The Mercury'' newspaper, the channel "..... was discovered on April 20, 1792, by the celebrated French "Vice-Admiral Bruni D'Entrecasteaux, who, in the ships ''Recherche'' and ''Esperance'', was searching for ill-fated ''La Perouse''. Visiting Van Diemen's Land for the first time, he was attempting to find an anchorage in Adventure Bay, when, being himself ill in bed, the ships' navigators entered the channel to the west of Bruny Island, instead of going to the eastward of it. Thus, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Friars (Tasmania)
The Friars are four steep dolerite rocks, with a combined area of about , in south-eastern Australia. They are part of the Actaeon Island Group, lying close to the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, at the southern entrance to the D'Entrecasteaux Channel between Bruny Island and the mainland. They form part of South Bruny National Park.Brothers, Nigel; Pemberton, David; Pryor, Helen; & Halley, Vanessa. (2001). ''Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: seabirds and other natural features''. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart. The group was named The Fryars by Tobias Furneaux in in March 1773. , Chapter VII, entry for March 1773 Fauna Recorded breeding seabird species are the little penguin, short-tailed shearwater, fairy prion and common diving-petrel. The metallic skink is present. Australian fur seals, and possibly New Zealand fur seal ''Arctocephalus forsteri'' (common names include the Australasian fur seal, South Australian fur seal, New Zealand fur seal, Antipo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orange-bellied Parrot
The orange-bellied parrot (''Neophema chrysogaster'') is a small parrot endemic to southern Australia, and one of only three species of parrot that migrate. It was described by John Latham in 1790. A small parrot around long, it exhibits sexual dimorphism. The adult male is distinguished by its bright grass-green upper parts, yellow underparts and orange belly patch. The adult female and juvenile are duller green in colour. All birds have a prominent two-toned blue frontal band and blue outer wing feathers. The orange-bellied parrot breeds in Tasmania and winters on the coast of southern mainland Australia, foraging on saltmarsh species, beach or dune plants and a variety of exotic weed species. The diet consists of seeds and berries of small coastal grasses and shrubs. With a wild population of 14 birds as of early February 2017, it is regarded as a critically endangered species. The orange-bellied parrot is rated as critically endangered on the International Union for Con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metallic Skink
:''"Metallic skink" may also refer to the garden skink ( Lampropholis delicata)''. ''Carinascincus metallicus'', the metallic cool-skink or metallic skink is a species of skink in the family Scincidae. It is endemic to Australia, found in southern Victoria, as well as in Tasmania where it is the most widespread and common lizard, occurring on many offshore islands in Bass Strait Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island states and territories of Australia, state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Bo ... as well as the mainland. It gives birth to live young. It is highly variable in colour and pattern, and may be a complex of closely related species.Cogger, H.G. (1979). ''Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia''. Reed: Sydney. References Carinascincus Skinks of Australia Endemic fauna of Australia Reptiles described in 1874 Taxa named by Arth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hauling-out
Hauling-out is a behaviour associated with pinnipeds ( true seals, sea lions, fur seals and walruses) temporarily leaving the water. Hauling-out typically occurs between periods of foraging activity. Rather than remain in the water, pinnipeds haul-out onto land or sea-ice for reasons such as reproduction and rest. Hauling-out is necessary in seals for mating (with the exception of the Baikal seal) and giving birth (although a distinction is generally made between reproductive aggregations, termed " rookeries", and non-reproductive aggregations, termed "haul-outs"). Other benefits of hauling-out may include predator avoidance, thermoregulation, social activity, parasite reduction and rest. There is much variation in haul-out patterns among different seal species.Hoelzel, A. Rus. (2002). ''Marine Mammal Biology: An Evolutionary Approach''. Blackwell Publishing. . p. 197. Haul-out sites may be segregated by age and sex within the same species. Many species of pinniped have only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinniped
Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely range (biology), distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammal, marine mammals. They comprise the extant taxon, extant family (biology), families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walrus), Otariidae (the eared seals: sea lions and fur seals), and Phocidae (the earless seals, or true seals). There are 34 extant species of pinnipeds, and more than 50 extinct species have been described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular phylogenetics, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage (descended from one ancestral line). Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora; their closest living relatives are Musteloidea, musteloids (Mustelidae, weasels, Procyonidae, raccoons, skunks, and red pandas), having diverged about 50 million years ago. Seals range in size from the and Baikal sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Rabbit
The European rabbit (''Oryctolagus cuniculus'') or coney is a species of rabbit native to the Iberian Peninsula (including Spain, Portugal, and southwestern France), western France, and the northern Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. It has been widely introduced elsewhere, often with devastating effects on local biodiversity. Its decline in its native range due to myxomatosis, rabbit calicivirus, overhunting and habitat loss has caused the decline of the Iberian lynx (''Lynx pardinus'') and Spanish imperial eagle (''Aquila adalberti''). It is known as an invasive species because it has been introduced to countries on all continents with the exception of Antarctica, and has caused many problems within the environment and ecosystems; in particular, European rabbits in Australia have had a devastating impact, due in part to the lack of natural predators there. The European rabbit is well known for digging networks of burrows, called warrens, where it spends most of its time wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sooty Oystercatcher
The sooty oystercatcher (''Haematopus fuliginosus'') is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading bird endemic to Australia and commonly found on its coastline. It prefers rocky coastlines, but will occasionally live in estuaries. All of its feathers are black. It has a red eye, eye ring and bill, and pink legs. Taxonomy John Gould described the sooty oystercatcher in 1845. Its species name is the Latin adjective ''fuliginosus'', "sooty". Two subspecies are recognised, the nominate from the coastline of southern Australia and subspecies ''ophthalmicus'' from northern Australia. The southern subspecies is larger and heavier than the northern. The northern one, with a more yellowish eye ring, is found from the Kimberleys across the top of the country to Mackay in central Queensland. There is considerable overlap, as the southern subspecies has been found up to Cape York. Subspecies ''ophthalmicus'' has been thought distinctive enough to warrant species status and needs further inv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short-tailed Shearwater
The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater (''Ardenna tenuirostris''; formerly ''Puffinus tenuirostris''), also called yolla or moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia, is the most abundant seabird species in Australian waters, and is one of the few Australian native birds in which the chicks are commercially harvested. It is a migratory species that breeds mainly on small islands in Bass Strait and Tasmania and migrates to the Northern Hemisphere for the boreal summer. Taxonomy This shearwater appears to be related to the sooty and great shearwaters, which are also blunt-tailed, black-billed species, but its precise relationships are obscure (Austin, 1996; Austin ''et al.'', 2004). These are among the larger species of shearwater, which have been moved to a separate genus, ''Ardenna'' based on a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (Penhallurick & Wink, 2004). Ecology Each parent feeds the single chick for 2–3 days and then leaves f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Penguin
The little penguin (''Eudyptula minor'') is a species of penguin from New Zealand. They are commonly known as little blue penguins or blue penguins owing to their slate-blue plumage and are also known by their Māori name . The Australian little penguin (''Eudyptula novaehollandiae'') from Australia and the Otago region of New Zealand is considered a separate species by a 2016 study and a 2019 study. Taxonomy The little penguin was first described by German naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster in 1781. Several subspecies are known, but a precise classification of these is still a matter of dispute. The holotypes of the subspecies ''E. m. variabilis'' and ''Eudyptula minor chathamensis'' are in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The white-flippered penguin (''E. m. albosignata'' or ''E. m. minor morpha albosignata'') is currently considered by most taxonomists to be a colour morph or subspecies of ''Eudyptula minor.'' In 2008, Shirihai treated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wader
245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, forage for food crawling or burrowing in the mud and sand, usually small arthropods such as aquatic insects or crustaceans. The term "wader" is used in Europe, while "shorebird" is used in North America, where "wader" may be used instead to refer to long-legged wading birds such as storks and herons. There are about 210 species of wader, most of which live in wetland or coastal environments. Many species of Arctic and temperate regions are strongly migratory, but tropical birds are often resident, or move only in response to rainfall patterns. Some of the Arctic species, such as the little stint, are amongst the longest distance migrants, spending the non-breeding season in the southern hemisphere. Many of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene. In general, seabirds live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds do, but they invest a great deal of time in their young. Most species nest in colonies, which can vary in size from a few dozen birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even feed on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic, coastal, or in some cases spend a part of the year away from the sea entirely. Seabirds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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