The Archer River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

located on the

Cape York Peninsula Cape York Peninsula is a large peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth’s last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

, Australia.

Course and features

The headwaters of the river rise in the

McIlwraith Range The McIlwraith Range is a rugged, dissected granite plateau on Cape York Peninsula of Far North Queensland, Australia. Part of the Great Dividing Range, the McIlwraith Range covers about and lies about east of the town of Coen, and north ...

and it flows west, traversing

tropical savanna Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The biome is dominated by grass and/or shrubs located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and t ...

plains and wetlands, flowing through

Piccaninny Plains Sanctuary Piccaninny Plains Wildlife Sanctuary is a 1700 km² nature reserve on the Cape York Peninsula of Far North Queensland, Australia. A former cattle station adjacent to Oyala Thumotang National Park, it is managed by the Australian Wildlife Conserv ...

and Oyala Thumotang National Park, and enters the Archer Bay in the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria (, ) is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies between Australia and New Guinea). The northern boundary is ...

on the western side of the peninsula near the town of

Aurukun Aurukun is a town and coastal suburbs and localities (Australia), locality in the Shire of Aurukun and the Shire of Cook in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is an Indigenous Australian, Indigenous community. In the , the locality of Aurukun ...

along with the Watson River and the Ward River. The

catchment area In human geography, a catchment area is the area from which a location, such as a city, service or institution, attracts a population that uses its services and economic opportunities. Catchment areas may be defined based on from where people are ...

for the Archer River is . During the

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

between November and April, the river floods, replenishing over a million hectares of

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s. The

Coen River The Coen River is a river located in the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. The headwaters of the river rise at the confluence of Pandanus Creek and an unnamed creek near Bend along the Peninsula Developmental Road in the Great ...

is a tributary of the Archer River. The river remains in a natural state with very little development and just one small dam that supplies water for the town of Coen. On 3 April 2009, Queensland Premier

Anna Bligh Anna Maria Bligh (born 14 July 1960) is a lobbyist and former Australian politician who served as the 37th Premier of Queensland, in office from 2007 to 2012 as leader of the Labor Party. She was the first woman to hold either position. In 2 ...

announced the Archer River would be included under the ''Wild Rivers Act, 2005'' (Qld). The declaration means the river's fragile ecosystems will be protected by allowing only sustainable activities within its catchment. The river has an average discharge of per annum.

Flora and fauna

Much of the river is bordered by

fig The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...

-dominated

gallery Gallery or The Gallery may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Art gallery ** Contemporary art gallery Music * Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s Albums * ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album * ''Gallery'' (Gr ...

rainforest 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 rainfores ...

s, which provide habitat for animals such as the

white-tailed rat The white-tailed rat (''Mystromys albicaudatus'') also known as the white-tailed mouse, is the only member of the subfamily Mystromyinae in the family Nesomyidae. This species is sometimes placed in the subfamily Cricetinae due to similarities ...

spotted cuscus The common spotted cuscus (''Spilocuscus maculatus''), also known as the white cuscus, is a cuscus, a marsupial that lives in the Cape York region of Australia, New Guinea, and nearby smaller islands. Names It is known as aklang or gabi in the ...

and

palm cockatoo The palm cockatoo (''Probosciger aterrimus''), also known as the goliath cockatoo or great black cockatoo, is a large smoky-grey or black parrot of the cockatoo family native to New Guinea, Aru Islands, and Cape York Peninsula. It has a very l ...

. Toothless catfish are found in the river. A total of 45 species of fish have been found in the river, including the glassfish, barred grunter, silver cobbler, fly-specked hardyhead, mouth almighty,

goby Goby is a common name for many species of small to medium sized ray-finned fish, normally with large heads and tapered bodies, which are found in marine, brackish and freshwater environments. Traditionally most of the species called gobies have b ...

barramundi The barramundi (''Lates calcarifer'') or Asian sea bass, is a species of catadromous fish in the family Latidae of the order Perciformes. The species is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, spanning the waters of the Middle East, South ...

, oxeye herring, eastern rainbowfish, bony bream, gulf saratoga, giant gudgeon, freshwater longtom and

seven-spot archerfish ''Toxotes chatareus'', sometimes known by the common names common archerfish, seven-spot archerfish or largescale archerfish, is a species of perciform fish in the archerfish genus ''Toxotes''.Martin F. Gomon & Dianne J. Bray (2011Sevenspot Arc ...

History

The

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

of the area are the Wik, Kaantju and Wikampama peoples. '' The river was named in 1865 by

Francis Lascelles Jardine Francis Lascelles (Frank) Jardine (28 August 1841 – 19 March 1919) was a Scottish-Australian pioneer who was at the forefront of British colonisation and Aboriginal dispossession in the Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait regions of Far N ...

and Alexander Jardine during an expedition through the area. They named the river after the

Archer brothers The Archer brothers were among the earliest European settlers in Queensland, Australia. They were explorers and pastoralists. Seven sons of William Archer, a Scottish timber merchant, they spent varying amounts of time in the colony of New Sou ...

of Gracemere in

Rockhampton Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. The population of Rockhampton in June 2021 was 79,967, Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. making it the fourth-largest city in the state outside of the ...

. The river had probably been named Dubbelde Ree by

Willem Jansz Willem Janszoon (; ), sometimes abbreviated to Willem Jansz., was a Dutch navigator and colonial governor. Janszoon served in the Dutch East Indies in the periods 16031611 and 16121616, including as governor of Fort Henricus on the island of So ...

in 1606 and later named Coen River by

Jan Carstensz Jan Carstenszoon or more commonly Jan Carstensz In Dutch patronyms ending in -szoon were almost universally abbreviated to -sz was a 17th-century Dutch explorer. In 1623, Carstenszoon was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to lead an ex ...

in 1623 and then named Peach River by

Robert Logan Jack Robert Logan Jack (16 September 1845 – 6 November 1921) was government geologist in Queensland, Australia, for twenty years. There is a minor waterway on Cape York; Logan Jack Creek, whose outflow is located some 7 kilometres from Ussher Poin ...

in 1879.

References

{{Rivers of Queensland Rivers of Far North Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria

Course and features

Flora and fauna

History

See also

References