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Bass Pyramid
The Bass Pyramid, part of the Furneaux Group, is a small, two sectioned oval, steep-sided unpopulated granite island, located in Bass Strait, lying north of the Flinders Island and south of the Kent Group, in Tasmania, Australia. A rock bridge connects the two sections. The island was used intermittently from the 1940s until 1988 as a bombing and shelling target by the Australian airforce and navy. On 5 April 1978 the island was proclaimed part of a nature reserve. Recorded breeding seabird and wader species include fairy prion, common diving-petrel, Pacific gull, silver gull, Australasian gannet and sooty oystercatcher. It is also a haul-out site for Australian fur seals.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 seals were hunted here in the 19th century. The dangers of the site resulted in at least three sealers losing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Strait
Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The strait provides the most direct waterway between the Great Australian Bight and the Tasman Sea, and is also the only maritime route into the economically prominent Port Phillip Bay. Formed 8,000 years ago by rising sea levels at the end of the last glacial period, the strait was named after English explorer and physician George Bass (1771-1803) by European colonists. Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of Bass Strait as follows: :''On the west.'' The eastern limit of the Great Australian Bight eing a line from Cape Otway, Australia, to King Island (Tasmania)">King Island and thence to Cape Grim, the northwest extreme of Tasmania]. :''On the east.'' The western limit of the Tasman Sea between Gabo Island and Eddystone Point eing a line fr ... [...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 s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islands Of Bass Strait
An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. Sedimentary islands in the Ganges Delta are called chars. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands, such as the Philippines, is referred to as an archipelago. There are two main types of islands in the sea: continental islands and oceanic islands. There are also artificial islands (man-made islands). There are about 900,000 official islands in the world. This number consists of all the officially-reported islands of each country. The total number of islands in the world is unknown. There may be hundreds of thousands of tiny islands that are unknown and uncounted. The number of sea islands in the world is estimated to be more than 200,000. The t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Areas Of Tasmania
Protected areas of Tasmania consist of protected areas located within Tasmania and its immediate onshore waters, including Macquarie Island. It includes areas of crown land (withheld land) managed by Tasmanian Government agencies as well as private reserves. As of 2016, 52% of Tasmania's land area has some form of reservation classification, the majority is managed by the Tasmania Parks & Wildlife Service (about 42% of total Tasmanian land area). Marine protected areas cover about 7.9% of state waters. Within each classification of reserve there may be a variation of IUCN categories Australia is a signatory to the Convention of Biological Diversity and as such has obligations to report the status of its National Reserve System.IUCN provides on its website a prescription for activities consistent with the categorisation system. Changes made to the ''Nature Conservation Act 2002'' in 2014 permit timber harvesting. These changes made in addition to the already established right t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Islands Of Tasmania
Tasmania is the smallest and southernmost state of Australia. The Tasmanian mainland itself is an island, with an area of - 94.1% of the total land area of the state. The other islands have a combined area of , for a cumulative total of 99.75% of the state. About 1000 smaller islands make up the remaining of total land area. Classification structure A considerable number of Tasmanian islands are identified as being in island groups, including the Breaksea, Furneaux, Hogan, Hunter, Kent, Maatsuyker, Mutton Bird, New Year, Swainson, Trumpeter, and Waterhouse groups. Regions Similar to Regions of Tasmania the islands are generally distinguished by the coast that they are adjacent to, as well as Bass Strait - the main separation from the mainland state of Victoria. Five regions are aligned to the north coast and Bass Strait - ''North West Islands'' (including King Island), ''North Coast Islands'', ''North Bass Strait Islands'', ''Furneaux Islands'', and ''North East Islands' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Fur Seal
The brown fur seal (''Arctocephalus pusillus''), also known as the Cape fur seal, South African fur seal and Australian fur seal, is a species of fur seal. Description The brown fur seal is the largest and most robust member of the fur seals. It has a large and broad head with a pointed snout that may be flat or turned up slightly. They have external ear flaps (pinnae) and their whiskers (vibrissae) are long, and may extend backward past the pinnae, especially in adult males. The fore flippers are covered with sparse hair over about three-quarters of their length. The hind flippers are short relative to the large body, with short, fleshy tips on the digits. The size and weight of the brown fur seal depends on the subspecies. The Southern African subspecies is on average slightly larger than the Australian subspecies. Males of the African subspecies (''A. p. pusillus'') are in length on average and weigh . Females are smaller, averaging in length and typically weighing .King, ... [...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 a fe ... [...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] |
Australasian Gannet
The Australasian gannet (''Morus serrator''), also known as the Australian gannet or tākapu, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. Adults are mostly white, with black flight feathers at the wingtips and lining the trailing edge of the wing. The central tail feathers are also black. The head is tinged buff-yellow, with a pale blue-grey bill edged in black, and blue-rimmed eyes. Young birds have mottled plumage in their first year, dark above and light below. The head is an intermediate mottled grey, with a dark bill. The birds gradually acquire more white in subsequent seasons until they reach maturity after five years. The species range over water above the continental shelf along the southern and eastern Australian coastline, from Steep Point in Western Australia to Rockhampton, Queensland, as well as the North and South Islands of New Zealand, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. Nesting takes place in colonies along the coastlines of New Zealand, Victoria ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silver Gull
The silver gull (''Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae'') is the most common gull of Australia. It has been found throughout the continent, but particularly at or near coastal areas. It is smaller than the Pacific gull (''Larus pacificus''), which also lives in Australia. The silver gull should not be confused with the herring gull, which is called "silver gull" in many other languages (scientific name ''Larus argentatus'', German ''Silbermöwe'', French ''Goéland argenté'', Dutch ''zilvermeeuw''), but is a much larger, robust gull with no overlap in range. Taxonomy It has traditionally been placed in the genus ''Larus'', as is the case with many gulls, but is now placed in the genus ''Chroicocephalus''. Hartlaub's gull (''C. hartlaubii'') of South Africa was formerly sometimes considered to be subspecies of the silver gull. There are three subspecies: * ''C. n. forsteri'' ( Mathews, 1912) – north and northeast Australia, New Caledonia, Loyalty Islands * ''C. n. novaehollan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific Gull
The Pacific gull (''Larus pacificus'') is a very large gull, native to the coasts of Australia. It is moderately common between Carnarvon in the west, and Sydney in the east, although it has become scarce in some parts of the south-east, as a result of competition from the kelp gull, which has "self-introduced" since the 1940s. Much larger than the ubiquitous silver gull, and nowhere near as common, Pacific gulls are usually seen alone or in pairs, loafing around the shoreline, steadily patrolling high above the edge of the water, or (sometimes) zooming high on the breeze to drop a shellfish or sea urchin onto rocks. Diet The gulls' diet consists of a number various fish species and invertebrates. They frequently consume crabs, most often the species ''Ovalipes australiensis'' and ''Paragrapsus gaimardii.'' They also commonly eat '' Platycephalus bassensis'' (sand flatheads) and cephalapods, both of which are sourced from their regular consumption of waste from fish which hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Diving-petrel
The common diving petrel (''Pelecanoides urinatrix''), also known as the smaller diving petrel or simply the diving petrel, is a diving petrel, one of four very similar auk-like small petrels of the southern oceans. It is native to South Atlantic islands and islands of the subantarctic southern Indian Ocean, islands and islets off New Zealand and south-eastern Australian islands. Taxonomy The common diving petrel was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin. He placed it with the other petrels in the genus ''Procellaria'' and coined the binomial name ''Procellaria uriatrix''. Gmelin based his description on the "diving petrel" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in the second volume of his ''A General Synopsis of Birds''. Latham reported that they were found in great numbers in Queen Charlotte Sound at the northern end of South Island, New Zealand. The common diving petrel is now one of four petrels place ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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