The Moyle 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 w ...
in the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
,
Australia.
Course
The river rises on a plateau area near the Wingate Mountains and flows in a north westerly direction through mostly uninhabited country through a narrow valley then across the Moyle Plain and eventually discharging about north east of
Port Keats into Hyland Bay and then the
Timor Sea
The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia.
The sea contains a number of reefs ...
.
An
floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
region exists along Hyland Bay formed by the Moyle and Little Moyle River. The area is dominated by seasonally inundated grassland and sedgeland with areas of
paperbark
''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of ''Leptospermum''). They range in size f ...
swamp.
Mangrove
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 ...
s are found along the stretches of the river, creeks and channels that are often backed by saline flats. The
Anson Bay, Daly and Reynolds River Floodplains, an important bird area, is situated immediately to the north of the site.
Tom Turners Creek is the only
tributary
A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...
to the river.
The
estuary
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...
formed at the river mouth is in near pristine condition with a tidal delta. The
estuary
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...
at the river mouth occupies an area of of open water. It is river dominated in nature with a wave dominated delta having single channel and is surrounded by an area of covered with
mangrove
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 ...
s.
Catchment
The catchment occupies an area of and is situated between the
Daly River catchment to the north, the
Fitzmaurice River catchment to the south. It has a mean annual outflow of ,
Fauna
A total of 25 species of fish are found in the river including; the Sailfin Glassfish,
Barred Grunter, Sooty Grunter, Fly-specked Hardyhead, Empire Gudgeon, Northern Trout Gudgeon,
Pennyfish,
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, Sout ...
, Oxeye Herring, Western Rainbowfish, Black-banded Rainbowfish, Bony Bream, Black Catfish, Short-finned Catfish,
Seven-spot Archerfish and the Primitive Archerfish.
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 right ...
of the area are the
Maringar,
Nanggikorongo and the
Magatige peoples. The river was named in the 1930s from a word in the Maringar language meaning 'plain' or 'plain country'.
See also
*
List of rivers of Northern Territory
References
{{Rivers of the Northern Territory , state=collapsed
Rivers of the Northern Territory