Cape Melville National Park (Cape York Peninsula Aboriginal Land) is a national park in the

Shire of Cook The Shire of Cook (The Shire) is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia. The Shire covers most of the eastern and central parts of Cape York Peninsula, the most northerly section of the Australian mainland. It covers an area ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, Australia. The national park was previously named Cape Melville National Park until it was renamed on 28 November 2013.

Geography

The park is 1,711 km northwest of

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

. Its main features are the rocky headlands of

Cape Melville Cape Melville is a headland on the eastern coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. To its west lies Princess Charlotte Bay. It is part of the Cape Melville National Park. Cape Melville was named Stoney Cape in 1815 by Lieutenant Charles ...

, granite boulders of the Melville Range and beaches of Bathurst Bay. The national park was the site of a 2013 National Geographic scientific expedition which discovered three new species. These were the

Cape Melville leaf-tailed gecko The Cape Melville leaf-tailed gecko (''Saltuarius eximius'') is a species of geckos that is endemic to the Melville Range on Cape Melville in Northern Australia. The species was described in 2013 by Australian zoologists Conrad Hoskin (of James ...

Cape Melville shade skink The Cape Melville shadeskink (''Saproscincus saltus'') is a species of lizards from the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia, described in 2013.

and the

Blotched boulder-frog ''Cophixalus petrophilus'', the blotched boulder-frog, is a species of frogs from the Cape York Peninsula (Queensland, Australia) that was described in 2013. It is one of three newly described vertebrate species from Cape Melville, Australia, t ...

. The park is home to a wide variety of plant communities, including

mangroves A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

rainforests Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...

, heathlands,

woodlands Woodlands may back refer to: * Woodland, a low-density forest Geography Australia * Woodlands, New South Wales * Woodlands, Ashgrove, Queensland, a heritage-listed house associated with John Henry Pepper * Woodlands, Marburg, Queensland, a her ...

and grasslands. The average elevation of the terrain is 43 meters.

References

National parks of Far North Queensland Protected areas established in 1973 1973 establishments in Australia {{FarNorthQueensland-geo-stub

Geography

See also

References