Queensland's Cape York Australia Page 1

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Cape York Page 1

Introduction

The Cape York Peninsula, the most northerly point on Australia's mainland, is immense, isolated, and of great importance to science and conservation, housing enormous diversity of fauna and flora, much of which is still inadequately investigated.

The Peninsula region, from Cape York in the north to Cairns in the south, covers over 15 million hectares and incorporates a number of National Parks, although the general area is still far from being protected. It incorporates coastal rainforest-covered mountains reaching 800m, open eucalypt woodland, heathland, tropical rainforest, sandhills and dunefields, granite gorges, limestone caves and stone columns (Chillagoe-Mungana National Park), hundreds of lakes and lagoons, and rivers flowing west to the Gulf of Carpentaria, including the Jardine River which has the second greatest flow in Queensland.

Rainfall variations divide the Peninsula into three distinct sub-regions: the northeast, the centre and southwest, and the wet tropics.

The northeast, approximately 750km along the coast, from Cape York in the north to just south of Cooktown, is wetter than the sub-region that incorporates the central and southwestern peninsula, though both have Wet and Dry seasons. The monsoonal Wet, between December and April, produces an average annual rainfall of 1600-1980 millimetres. The vegetation here consists mainly of open forests and rainforests, and includes flora from New Guinea - such as rhododendrons - along the coast. Species of Melaleuca, such as argentea, leucadendron, viridiflora, quinquenervia and arcana, are found in diverse environments here, from vine forest to heathland and mangrove swamp. The mangrove forest at Kennedy Inlet near Cape York is the largest in Australia. Leptospermum and Hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) can also be found, as can some areas of plants that are deciduous or semi-deciduous in the Dry.

Another feature of the northeast is the dunefields, which are dotted with golden window lakes. The most spectacular field, with dunes 100m high at White Point, is at Cape Grenville.

The centre and southwest are drier, experiencing drought during the Dry. Open woodlands and shrubs predominate this area, the main species of tree being Eucalyptus tetrodonta, Eucalyptus polycarpa and Erythrophleum chlorostachys. Saltflats and marine plains can be found along the coast, as can open cut mines.

The wet tropics is a narrow strip of eastern coast that extends some 500km from Cooktown to Townsville along the Coral Sea, incorporating a number of national parks, including the Daintree - Australia's largest remaining rainforest wilderness. It is one of the worlds wettest areas, being particularly wet from December to March. The tropical rainforest reaches to the white beaches and consists of a mass of trees, mosses, ferns, palms (such as the fan palm - Licuala ramsayi), epiphytes and some 90 species of orchid, including the Cooktown orchid (Dendrobium bigibbum). The area also contains eucalypt forests, however, as well as paperbark swamps, mangroves and casuarinas.

The wet tropics holds the richest concentration and variety of animals, birds, reptiles and insects in Australia, many of them unique and of immense interest to scientists and conservationists alike. Some of these are Bennetts tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus bennettianus), Lumholtzs tree-kangaroo (D. lumholtzi), the rare white lemuroid possum (Hemibelideus lemuroides) and the rare Atherton antechinus (Antechinus godmani), a carnivorous marsupial; also the musky rat-kangaroo (Hypsiprymnodon moschatus) and the Thornton Peak melomys (Melomys hadrourus). Amongst the frogs are the rare Litoria lorica and Cophixalus neglectus, as well as the common giant green tree frog (Litoria infrafrenata).

Over 120 bird species have been recorded, including the golden bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana), the Australian fern wren (Crateroscelis gutturalis), the toothbilled catbird (Scenopogetes dentirostis), the chowchilla (Orthonyx spalkingii), the bridled honeyeater (Lichenostomas frenatus) the Atherton scrub wren (Sericornis keri), the mountain thornbill (Acanthiza katherina), the little tree-creeper (Climacteris minor), the pied monarch (Arses kaupi), the lesser sooty owl (Tyto multipunctata) and many more.

A staggering number of reptiles, too, add to the diversity of the wet tropics: Boyds forest dragon (Gonocephalus boydii) and the chameleon gecko (Carphodactylus laevis) are but two. Equally, spectacular species of butterflies (the mountain blue, the red lacewing, the Cairns birdwing being some) and thousands of other insects are of interest.

Other flora of the Cape York Peninsula include the Corypha elata, an attractive palm that flowers once in its lifetime and then dies, and the insectivorous pitcher plant (Nepenthes mirabilis). Fauna include the spotted and the grey cuscus (Phalanger maculatus and orientalis), the spiny bandicoot (Echymipera rufescens), the bare-backed fruit bat (Dobsonia moluccensis), bandicoots, pademelons and others, including endemic frogs and skinks. A number of other birds, among them birds of paradise, the eclectus parrot, the red-cheeked parrot and the rare double-eyed fig parrot, are restricted to the region. The golden-shouldered parrot (Psephotus chrysopterygius - which nests on termite mounds) and the white-streaked honeyeater (Trichodere cockerelli) are endemic. Brolgas, white pygmy geese, and hundreds of others also occur here in great numbers.

The Cape York Peninsula is not only invaluable as a habitat for wildlife; it also contains hundreds if not thousands of Aboriginal art sites, such as the ones at Split Rock near Laura area. The Peninsula is sparsely populated and virtually inaccessible, the single dirt road that leads to it being safe only in the height of the dry season. This isolation has been advantageous to its conservation, and a great degree of sensitivity is required to manage what is one of the last great wildlife regions remaining in the world.

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