Australia

Oceanía

Capital: CanberraMarch to May

385

Documented species

Parks and reserves

Dive sites

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Australia has been isolated from the other landmasses for some fifty million years, and that solitude has produced a fauna like nowhere else: marsupials here fill the roles that placental mammals play on other continents, and the world's only egg-laying mammals still survive. The interior is dominated by red deserts and spinifex scrub, the tropical north by savannahs and mangroves flooded by the monsoon, the southeast by eucalypt forests and the southwest by a hotspot of plant diversity. Off the northeast coast, the Great Barrier Reef stretches more than two thousand kilometres and is the largest structure built by living creatures on the planet.

The nature of Australia

National animal: The red kangaroo, the national animal, and the emu, both on the country's coat of arms

Did you know?

The platypus so baffled European naturalists that the first specimens sent to London were dismissed as a hand-stitched hoax. It is a mammal that lays eggs, feeds its young by sweating milk through the skin, carries a venomous spur on the males' hind legs, and hunts with eyes, ears and nostrils shut, detecting the electric fields generated by its prey's muscles through receptors spread across its bill.

Biodiversity profile

AustralasiaAprox. 22% del territorio terrestre bajo el Sistema Nacional de Reservas (dato variable segun fuente/año)

Climate

•Tropical monzonico (N)
•Sabana tropical (N/NE)
•Desertico arido y semiarido (centro-oeste)
•Subtropical humedo (E costa)
•Mediterraneo (SO/S)
•Oceanico templado (Tasmania/SE)

Main biomes

•Sabana tropical (norte)
•Desierto y semidesierto (Outback, ~35% del territorio)
•Bosque esclerofilo templado (SE)
•Bosque tropical (Queensland NE)
•Pastizales de spinifex (centro)
•Matorral mediterraneo (SO)
•Arrecife de coral
•Desierto rojo de spinifex
•Bosque de eucaliptos
•Sabana tropical del norte
•Matorral mediterráneo del suroeste
•Selva lluviosa de Queensland
•Manglar y llanura mareal

Marine and coastal ecosystems

•Gran Barrera de Coral (NE)
•Arrecifes de Ningaloo (O)
•Praderas de posidonia (S)
•Manglares tropicales (N)

Flagship wildlife

•Canguro rojo
•Koala
•Ornitorrinco
•Diablo de Tasmania
•Emu
•Wombat
•Equidna
•Cocodrilo de estuario
•Dingo
•Demonio de Tasmania
•Equidna de hocico corto
•Casuario austral
•Tiburón ballena
•Ualabí

Notable endemic species

•Ornitorrinco (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)
•Equidna de hocico corto
•Numbat
•Bilby mayor
•Casuario meridional
•Koala
•Demonio de Tasmania
•Ave lira soberbia

Notable threatened species

•Diablo de Tasmania (En Peligro)
•Koala (Vulnerable, poblaciones en declive)
•Posum pigmeo de montana (En Peligro Critico)
•Wombat de nariz peluda del norte (En Peligro Critico)

Notable protected areas

•Parque Nacional Kakadu
•Gran Barrera de Coral (Patrimonio Mundial)
•Parque Nacional Uluru-Kata Tjuta
•Tropicos Humedos de Queensland
•Parque Nacional de Kakadu
•Selva de Daintree
•Parque Nacional de Uluru-Kata Tjuta
•Costa de Ningaloo
•Bahía Shark

Main conservation threats

•Mayor tasa mundial de extincion de mamiferos en los ultimos 200 años
•Mas de 1.900 especies y comunidades ecologicas amenazadas
•Incendios forestales extremos
•Especies invasoras (gatos y zorros ferales)
•Cambio climatico y blanqueamiento coralino
•Perdida y fragmentacion de habitat

Notable natural phenomena

•Blanqueamiento masivo periodico de corales en la Gran Barrera
•Floraciones deserticas tras lluvias en el Outback

Conservation

Since the 1990s the Tasmanian devil has suffered a transmissible facial cancer, one of the very few contagious tumours known, which has decimated the species and forced the creation of insurance populations on disease-free islands. Mass coral bleaching events have hit the Great Barrier Reef with growing frequency.

Where and when to watch wildlife

Ningaloo between March and July for whale sharks. Kakadu in the dry season, from May to September, for waterbirds and crocodiles. Tasmania at dusk for devils and wallabies.

Datos de % protegido varian segun la fuente (DCCEEW vs otras); usar como referencia aproximada, no exacta.

Sources: DCCEEW (dcceew.gov.au) - State of the Environment 2021 | CSIRO Climate Adaptation | Wikipedia - Eastern Australian temperate forests | BioDB.com

Savanna Rainforest Desert Grassland Ocean

Natural phenomena in Australia

Migración de cangrejos rojos en Isla Christmas — Octubre a enero (desove nov-dic)
Migración de tiburón ballena en Ningaloo Reef — Marzo a agosto (pico abril-junio)
Desove masivo de coral en la Gran Barrera — Octubre a diciembre (según la luna llena)

Parks and reserves

National Park

Uluru-Kata Tjuta

The most famous sandstone monolith in the world, returned to its Anangu owners in 1985; climbing Uluru was banned in 2019

View park National Park

Coorong

Immortalised in the Australian novel and film Storm Boy; a 140 km coastal lagoon behind a dune barrier

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Kakadu

One of the few places in the world with a dual UNESCO listing for natural and cultural value; Aboriginal rock art over 20,000 years old

View park World Heritage Site (Natural)

Bahía Shark

One of the few places in the world inscribed under all four natural criteria, with living stromatolites and the largest seagrass meadow on the planet.

View park National Park

Barrington Tops

One of the last remnants of ancient temperate forest from Australian Gondwana, with Nothofagus trees over 400 years old

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Blue Mountains

Named for the bluish haze its eucalypt forests give off, from the volatile oils they release

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Border Ranges

It protects the eroded remains of a 23-million-year-old shield volcano, one of the largest ever to have existed on the Australian continent

View park World Heritage Site (Natural)

Costa de Ningaloo

Australia's largest fringing reef, where the largest known aggregation of whale sharks gathers every year.

View park National Park

Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair

Tasmania's most iconic landscape, with Dove Lake below Cradle Mountain and Australia's deepest natural lake.

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Daintree

Reckoned the oldest continuous rainforest in the world, with more than 180 million years of unbroken history

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Diving and snorkelling

Outer reef

Agincourt Reefs

A group of ribbon reefs on the outer edge, close to the continental shelf, which gives them excellent visibility. The Caves is one of its sites, with small and highly photogenic caverns.

View dive site Reef

Cod Hole

A site celebrated for close encounters with enormous potato cod, at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

View dive site Platform reef

Flynn Reef

An outer reef with individual coral bommies ringed by sand, popular for both macro and wide-angle photography.

View dive site Coral reef

Heron Island

A coral cay in the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef, with a research station of its own. 3 Rocks is one of its classic drift sites.

View dive site Coral reef

Lady Elliot Island

An eco-resort reef island at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef; high densities of manta rays and turtles.

View dive site Coastal reef

Ningaloo Reef

Australia's longest fringing reef, some 260 km, and one of the few great reefs in the world that literally hugs the land. The continental shelf is unusually narrow here, so that deep ocean water, the reef and the coast lie very close together: that concentrates an amount of marine life out of all proportion to the size of the place.

View dive site Platform reef

Norman Reef

One of the most popular day-trip reefs from Cairns, with shallow coral gardens ideal for beginners.

View dive site Wreck

SS Yongala

A 109 m passenger ship that sank during a cyclone in 1911. She is probably the most cited wreck in Australia and appears regularly in lists of the ten best dives in the world. Being exposed and subject to strong currents, she is reserved for experienced divers.

View dive site Coral reef

Whitsunday Islands (Bahía Chalkies)

An archipelago of 74 islands beside the Great Barrier Reef, with reefs reachable on day trips from Airlie Beach.

View dive site Oceanic swim-through cave

Fish Rock Cave (South West Rocks)

A tunnel some 120-125 m long running through Fish Rock from east to west: the only true ocean cave in Australia that is dived regularly. The shallow entrance lies at about 12 m and is a wide cavern with natural light and pink gorgonians; the deep one, at 24 m, is where the sharks gather. Around 80 m of the route lies outside the light zone, so a torch is essential, and there are blind side passages that demand attention.

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