Liguanea Island is an uninhabited granite island in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

located 3.7 km south of

Cape Carnot Cape Carnot (french: Cap Carnot) is a headland in the Australian state of South Australia located on the west side of the southern tip of Eyre Peninsula about south west of the city of Port Lincoln. The Eyre Peninsula has a double tip; the oth ...

at the southern, central point of

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named aft ...

. It is approximately 2.7 km long, 180 ha in size its elevation above sea level is estimated to be 43 metres. It is approximately 35 km south-west of

Port Lincoln Port Lincoln is a town on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia. It is situated on the shore of Boston Bay, which opens eastward into Spencer Gulf. It is the largest city in the West Coast region, and is located a ...

in the

Great Australian Bight The Great Australian Bight is a large oceanic bight, or open bay, off the central and western portions of the southern coastline of mainland Australia. Extent Two definitions of the extent are in use – one used by the International Hydrog ...

. The island forms part of the

Lincoln National Park Lincoln National Park is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located about west of the state capital of Adelaide and about south of the municipal seat of Port Lincoln. It consists of a mainland area on the Jussieu Pe ...

History

Liguanea Island was named by British explorer

Matthew Flinders Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...

on 18 February 1802. The following day, Flinders named the nearby headland

Cape Wiles Cape Wiles is a headland located on the west side of the southern tip of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia about south west of the city of Port Lincoln. The cape is described by one source as being the south east extremity of “a broad promont ...

"after a worthy friend at Liguanea, in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

." In Flinders' atlas (Plate 17) there is a view of the cape and the island as seen from his ship, ''The Investigator''."Historical Review of Western Coastline"
''Port Lincoln Times'' (1934-06-15). Retrieved 2014-01-10. The same year, French explorer

Nicolas Baudin Nicolas Thomas Baudin (; 17 February 1754 – 16 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer, most notable for his explorations in Australia and the southern Pacific. Biography Early career Born a comm ...

named the island as ''Ile Guyton''. In 1905, the ship ''Governor Musgrave'' called by Liguanea Island while searching for the wreckage of the lost vessel, ''Loch Vennachar''. A newspaper correspondent on the vessel described the island as "a large bare block of forbidding granite some miles in extent." In 1914, a buck and two does were placed on Liguanea Island. The island first obtained protected area status as a fauna conservation reserve declared under the ''Crown Lands Act 1929-1966'' on 16 March 1967. On 26 May 1980 biodiversity data was collected on Liguanea Island. Among there species recorded were Australian sea-lion,

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 lit ...

Cape Barren goose The Cape Barren goose (''Cereopsis novaehollandiae'') is a large goose resident in southern Australia. Etymology The species' common name is derived from Cape Barren Island, where specimens were first sighted by European explorers. It is known ...

and

bush rat The bush rat or Australian bush rat (''Rattus fuscipes'') is a small Australian Nocturnality, nocturnal animal. It is an omnivore and one of the most common indigenous species of rat on the continent, found in many heathland areas of Victoria ...

.Explore by location > Liguanea Island
''Atlas of Living Australia''. Accessed 2014-01-10. Little penguin breeding on the island was acknowledged in a 1996 survey of South Australia's offshore islands.

References

{{Islands of South Australia , state=collapsed Islands of South Australia Great Australian Bight Uninhabited islands of Australia