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111111111 Australian Natural History is audited by the Audit Bureau of afjc Circulations. Front Cover An Indonesian perahu glides over the turquoise waters at Ashmore Reef, off Australia's north-west coast. Does the practice of traditional fishing harm the reef? Seethe article on page 210. Photo by B.C. Russell.
V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 181 C O N T E N T S Articles IN THISISSUE GEORGINA 1-IlCKEY SCIENTIACEDITOR ------, THE DAINTREE DILEMMA The Daintree area attracts thousands of people from all over the world, wishing to experience this unique and exciting OR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR, ecosystem. There is 1zo ANH has received the NSW Zoological questioning the factthat we need tourists. But is the area Society's Whitley A ward for Best accommodated to receive them, NaturalF History Periodical (1989). We hope without unwanted destnictio11 of the veryplace they come to that the great array of articles in this and experience? future issues will help get us a fourth! BY SUE Md TYRE, BERT Last April, Bert Jenkins came JENKI S & ROSEMARY LOTT bounding into the ANH office, having just 200 The ANH team with the latestWhitley Award, from left to right: Georgina returnedfrom an expeditionto the Daintree Hickey, Fiona Doig and Cathy region. He believes that tourism is one of McGahev. the most pressing problems for the area. Thousands flock there each year, but often return without getting a good look at the rainforest. And those that do invariably leave some di rect or indirectmark on the region. Together with colleagues from the University of New England, they addressthis problem and launch their concept of 'eco-tourism'. Another problem, still up north but much further west, concernsthe traditionalIndonesian practice of fishing in Australian waters. A survey was conducted in the area of Ashmore Reef to study the effects of the INDONESIANFISHERMEN fishery. Lyle Vail and Barry Russell from the NT Museum of Artsand OF AUSTRALIA'S NORTH-WEST Science report. Traditionalfishing /)y And soils. The fact that our precious soil is being blown or eroded Indonesians around Ashmore Reef has continued forseveral away is well known. Less well known is how to reverse, or at least halt, centun·es. Recently, however, new the destruction process. Maura Boland, from the SCS, explains how to regulationshave been introduced, banning all fishingfrom most 'make up for lost ground'. areas of the reef The result? Also in this issue are articles on the latest methods of dating Aborigi Illegalfishing. A surveywas therefore undertaken to assess the nal rock art, the reasons behind the relatively recent extinctions of impact of traditional Indonesian medium-sized Australian mammals, and rainforest snails. Robyn fishingactivities 011 and around Williams discusses the trap that historians of science oftenfall into; Ian the reef BY LYLE VAIL & BARRY RUSSELL Lock the rich story behind a pink bivalve in the Museum's malacology 210 collection; and Mike Archer the view of rainforests as biological ware houses. The complimentary poster in this issue is an 18th-century FABIANS OF THEFOREST coloured engraving of an Eastern Blue-tongue Lizard by John White. Rainforestsnails are a diverse lot: small, large, cryptically coloured, brightly patterned, and some even heading towards slugdom. BY BRONWEN SCOTT 220
182 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY THE LAST WORD MAKINGUP FOR LOST GROUND ANTARCTICA: WILDERNESS It's all verywell to relate horror FROM THE ARCHIVES OR GOLDMINE? stories of land degradation, /Jut Australia and France have taken we need to be told how to halt the A STRANGE TALE a stance against a Convention problems and avoid futureones. Among the specimens in the that would allow mining in the What can the average land Australian Museum's mollusc last (relatively) untouched region holder do? collection is a pink bivalve. Its of the globe. history is related,from the time BY MAURA BOLAND BY LYN GOLDSWORTHY of its collection byFrederick 226 Strange in 1854from Percy 264 Island, just before his death by Aboriginesthere. BY IAN LOCH 194 LETTERS Competition: Hard or Soft?; Drongo; Mounted Pictures; P H O T O A R T Australian Native Plants; COMPOSmONIN BARK Response to Roxburgh. A seasonal study in strips and 184 scribbles and flakes and curls from Australia's woody wilds. The European introduction of BY IAN BROWN 'superior', competitive placental 248 mammals to this continent has been blamed for the string of mammal extinctions since white RARE & ENDANGERED settlement. Yet it now seems LIVING ON THE EDGE that the Europeanremoval of Under a few waterfalls in the Aborigines and their practice of Blue Mountains, one of WI LD FO ODS firestick farming is more to Australia's rarest conifers, blame. OUTMOORABERREE WAY Microstrobos fitzgeraldii, can be BY TIM FLANNERY Alice Duncan-Kemp's writings of found squeezed into the narrow early-centuryChannel Country zone between drought and flood. 234 Aborigines reveal how theydid in BY IAN BROWN fact storefood and brew alcohol. BY TIM LOW 252 196 QUIPS,QUOTES & CURIOS VI EWS FR OM TH E FOURTH DIMENSI ON Blushing Flowers; UV or not UV? The Answer's in the Coral; ASLONG ASLIFE'S HAT Record Divesfor Elephant Seals; HASRABBITS Control of the Curse; Monotremes Rainforest has been and Still have Some Shocks in Store; continues to be Australia's richest To Cast a Stone; Spidersthat reservoir of biological diversity. It Smell; Growing Gums in the is filled with creatures with one Greenhouse; Chicken Vindaloo or foot on a threshold, unknowingly Sweet and Soztr?; FirstLord waiting-like rabbits in a green Howe, then the World; Mystery hat-to fill new available Photograph. habitats. BY MICHAEL ARCHER 186 254 QUESTIONS& ANSWERS NEW CLOCKS ON OLD A Questionof Gender; An Ill ROCKS: DATING STILL EVOLVIN G Wind; Recycling Paper; Why DREAMTIME ART Whales? How is Aboriginal rock art BESTIALITYAND THE dated? Estimates have been based RECOGNmON OF SEXUAL p R 0 F L 258 on the degree of weathering, E MATES comparison of art styles and the WHIGGERY Two concepts have been proposed archaeological context in which People are apt to recognise only to describe a species: The REVIEWS they arefozmd. However, new the successes in science and to Biological Species Conceptand Charles Darwin in Australia; techniques involving radiocarbon forget the failures. Yet failure, in The Recognition Concept of Encountersin Place: Outsiders dating ofthe weathering crusts many ways, is the essenceof Species. An interesting 'dialogue' and Aboriginal Australians that have formed below or above science. How does this 'whig' elucidates the dif/erenccsand the 1606-1985;Natural Historyof the art may provide more interpretation of science portray more realistic of the two. Dalhousie Springs; Kakadu accurate answers. Sir FredHoyle? BY GLEN lNGRAM & RALPH Country; Fiji'sNatural Heritage; BY ALAN WATCHMAN BY ROBYN WILLIAMS MOLNAR Top End Native Plants. 242 198 256 260 V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 183 f E E D I A C K feet symbiosis between el ements that belong to different kingdoms no less. All animals live either directly or indirectly on plants, that is they spend their entire lives devouring, eat ing and destroying them and are LITTERS thereby often the mortal enem ies of plants. And yet the mito Comments, criticism and congratulations from concerned chondria and probably several correspondents. Readers are invited to air their views. other cellular elements are symbiotic 'plants' in an 'animal' Competition: Hard or Soft? ing Michael Archer's "Slime that is, to each participant's membrane indispensably help Monsters will be Human Too" mutual benefit, or, more often, ing the 'animal' cell to survive. Michael Archer's "Slime would unconditionally plunge us simply unadulterated nepotism, This relationship is thought to Monsters will be Human Too" back into tum-of-the-century it shouldn't blind us to its very have evolved when the mito (ANH, Autumn '89) invites pro Social Darwinism, of which the real and extensive existence. If chondria learned to survive in test on two accounts. Twice aforementioned Hitler's brutal 'unselfishly' caring for and risk side an animal cell after it had Michael has reached con Reichs were simply the most ing one's life for one's offspring been eaten by it! clusions that don't necessarily logical and consistent ex hadn't been an evolutionarily Every multicelluar organism follow from his evidence-only, pression. successful invention, we would is a colony of sometimes trillions presumably, from his own pri Very early in the history of all still be squirting our gametes of individuals, all of which, save vate assumptions. the biosphere life discovered into ocean currents on the the small fraction in the germ One: Kamala's behaviour that 'united we stand divided we happenstance that somewhere, plasm, have sacrificed them doesn't reveal a subterranean fall'. The living phenomenon is somehow my ova would collide selves in a most spectacular bestiality lurking in us all. Every so replete \vith caring, sharing with your sperm and that the re orgy of communistic 'from each detail of her complex 'bestiality' and cooperation, as well as com sultant embryo would somehow according to his ability, to each was faithfully learnt in the only mensalism, rr.utualism and sym manage to survive on its own! according to his need' -unselfish school she knew-a wolf's pack biosis, that it is simply unfor In short, while caring and type cooperationever imagined. and family den. From Hitler, givable for someone in sharing do existonly as devices And it works. and Kamala, to Mother Theresa Michael's position to ignore it. to promote evolutionary suc One could fill books citing ex the evidence supports only the Modem biology doesn't. That's cess, they are as successful and amples of winning through co conclusion that early childhood what sociobiology is all about. It as entrenched in the living operation instead of bashing experience has an indelible edu is about giving a Darwinian (that phenomenon as are blood each other over the head, and in cational affect on the is competitive) accounting for stained teeth and claws, and are this age where a recognition of individual's entire subsequent the apparent paradox of other often many times more effec the mutual interdependence of sociality, nothing about innate wise wholly competitive organ tive than sheer 'I-win-you-lose' us all is universally proclaimed bestiality. Among other forms isms faithfully helpin� and brutality. and demonstrated beyond any of severe childhood brutality, caring for one another in each of Indeed it is now widely con reasonable doubt, "Slime Mon Hitler was a daily abused child in a thousand million ways, on sidered that every single cell sters will be Human Too" is an an era that condoned and widely every level of complexity. above the bacterial level, includ unforgivable anachronism. practised it. In short, foster wolf Just because this \videspread ing all those making up our own Let's send Michael some eo mothers, neglect and abuse 'altruism' is always 'selfish', bodies, consists of a most per- Nazi magazines to give him don't allow the 'bestiality some idea of where his unmodi lurking in us all' to surface, they fied dog-eat- 184 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY fight or war was over the mo more recent work now suggests certainly would subscribe after grows quickly in the Brazilian ment the first drop was drawn that the two forms overlap 011 the hearing about all those wonder climate. The line's 200 mile lies or the first couple of scalps island ofSulawesi and behave ful articles you publish. The approximately north and south taken. Get with it Michael! as separate species. It appears magazine gets bigger (!) and equally either side of the Tropic We love the new magazine that the original Gould name better with with every issue. of Capricorn and operated on its and wish you all the best. will have to be reinstated for the Congratulations to the editors self-renewing fuel supply until -Margaret Austin A11stralian species. This makes of ANH! 1958 when the antiquated Springwood, Qld sense from thP plumage. the -Elinor Hain steam locomotives were re Forestville, NSW placed by diesels." Need I add more regarding Response to Roxburgh the self-regenerating properties I am 80 years of age and, of eucalypts? when I was 20, bought a two -G.C. Hore thirds-acre block way out in the Frankston, Vic. sticks, clear felled it (including a dirty big gum tree) and erected I noticed in the Autumn '89 my house. But that gumtree issue of ANH (vol. 22, no. 12) a was a sucker for punishment, letter by Rachel Roxburgh and a for 20 years later, during the photograph of logging in ew Depression, two suckers had Zealand demonstrating the dev become trunks equally as huge astation caused by woodchip ex as the original gum. So I felled ploitation. I then noticed that them for firewood. this magazine was printed in When I was 60, I thought to Japan by Dai Nippon Printing myself "I had better behead Co. The magazine and the Mu that tree at ground level, other seum should put its money wise I will spend the rest of my where its mouth is and not deal life raking up its bark and with peoplewho exploit our for leaves" but, as I look out my ests and destroy wildlife. window, I see five trunks -W. Ringland Banglow, NSW Drongo Original line drawing of the equally as big as that original Indonesian form of the Spangled gum. So Rachel, it is not that the I refer to page 541 of the Orongo by Charlies Vaurie, 1949. Forestry Commission does not Question: what does Harris Autumn '89 issue of ANH (vol. have the expertise to predict Daishowa do with our wood 22, no. 12) regarding QQC's Indonesian bird having much what will happen to your chips? Answer: they are in A us What's in a Name?: Drongo. more elaborate ornamentation 300,000 hectares at Eden-the tralian Natural History. When I was a wartime Rookiein of the head. suckers (in 80 years time) will What A H needed, quite the RAAF it was well known -Walter Boles become their headache (see simply, was more good that a Drongo was a mythical Australian Museum ANH vol. 22, no. 12, page 532). articles-not more gloss, a bird with most peculiar flying Further, let me quote an passing coffee-table appear abilities. It, also, was brainless. Australian Native Plants article I read a few years ago on ance, or an increased rhapsody However, the main purpose the overseas use of Australian The Campus Conference on sex in any shape, form or in writing this letter regards the eucalypts. It is a comment writ Centre of the University of New creature, including ourselves. scientific name of the Spangled ten by railroad author Daniel England will be hosting a major My enjoyment from the Drongo (Dicninis hottentottus). Behrman and published by Conference on the Australian magazine depended on a feeling In eville Cayley's book What Little, Brown & Co. of Boston flora to be held from 15-18 that it could be referred to for Bird is That? (1984 edition, re and Toronto in 1977, regarding February 1990. The Confer facts-nor for evidence of the vised by A.H. Chisholm, K.A. Dr Clinton C. Kemp-a chemi ence, entitled "Australian worship of science and rec Hindwood and A.R. McGill), the cal engineer interested in using Native Plants in the 21st Cen ommendation of it (The Last scientific name of Spangled energy derived from the sun: tury", will bring together lead Word, ANH, vol. 22, no. 12). Drongo is given as Dicrurus "He came across the Paulista On an economic point, may I bracteatus, with a distribution in ing professionals from a wide Railroad in Brazil that had been spectrum of government and suggest an export market in north-western Australia to built in 1903 to serve Sao Paulo Japan? Just a translation and we northern Queensland and south environmental organisations to and its hinterland. The railroad predict what the future holds for could be off! Our balance of to eastern Victoria; accidental ran for 200 miles, and six plan our native forests and flora. As trade needs a jog, now that to Tasmania; and also occurring tations were set up to supply the 21st century is only 11 we've abandoned the printing. in ew Guinea. wood along the way to fire its They [the Japanese], at least, -F.l. Cunningham years away, trends emerging steam locomotives. Dr Kemp now are being assessed for their presumably consider this Lindfield East, NSW thinks this was the first time plastic-paged arrangement an future impact on Australian so such a crop was actually planted ciety. With adequate forward appropriate surface on which to for energy. In 1900 the railroad present serious, important in The Spangled Drongo was planning, it is hoped that Aus sought a suitable tree for its tralians will be prepared to meet formation. As for the change, originally described by John plantations. It had to be straight I'm sure that newstand buyers Gould, who gave it the name major changes with confidence. and without branches so it could -Maria Hitchcock will be happy and like it; but Dicrurus bracteatus. be cut into five foot lengths that Later Consultant (067) 751139 then don't they only read 'cur studies afterCayley 's book indi a fireman could handle. Euca rent', throw-out periodicals? cated that this species is the lypts were the species chosen. Hoping for the best that can same as one found throughout Waves on the Wireless Five trees can be sprouted from be hoped for, and anticipating a Indonesia and the two should be I listened to the ANH inter the same stump after the orig return to Australian printership treated under one name, in this view on 2BL radio on Sunday 4 inal has been felled. The wood is and your former distinctively instance, D. hottentottus hav June 1989. I have been sub so dense that it floats with only Australian layout. ing priority. This is the current scribing to the magazine for the the top of the log breaking the -David Lynch state of the name, although even last four years, but if I hadn't I surface of the water, and it Longueville, NSW V O L U M E 2 3 N U M 8 E R 3 , 5 U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 185 , 0 T P O U R R I _ ., ._ "'� .,._} ·- .... -• .P'.�•• --· � .. interconnection with polli nation, perhaps it is not so sur prising. All the control flowers eventually 'blushed' and shriv QUIPS, QUOTES elled, as would be expected with normal senescence in this species. Whether the change in colour &CURIOS and state per se is adaptive, or COMPILED BY GEORGINA HICKEY whether it is just an incidental SCIENTIFICEDITOR part of 'adaptively' triggered senescence, is not known. Either way it is clear that both Blushing Flowers sequent change. Activities in had no effect. Surprisingly, the pollinator and plant benefit. cluded touchingthe petals, stig however, removal of nectar The pollinator's efficiency is im The role of flower colour is to mata and anthers, removal of without pollination did result in proved by not wasting energy advertise their presence to po pollen, pollination (self- and the petals changing colour, and probing for rewardless flowers, tential pollinators. Pollinators, cross-), nectar withdrawal and removal of nectar followed by and other unpollinated flowers in their bid to extract the nectar simply leaving the flowers alone its immediate return had the ef on the plant have a greater from flowers, transfer pollen (the controls). fect of cancelling the signal for chance of being visited and thus from one flower to the next, en Flowers were confirmed to colour change. Before this pollinated. abling pollination and fertilis change colour and shrivel after study, removal of nectar had not -G.H. ation to take place. However, pollination, and simulated insect been thought of as a significant Petals of the Dune Evening Prim problems arise with plants that landing and touching of various factor in the signalling process rose 'blush' and change shapeafter have numerous flowers-some flower parts without pollination but, if one considers its close pollination. of which are pollinated, and others that are still to be polli nated. Those that have already been pollinated continue to at tract the pollinators (be they in sects, birds or whatever). Apart from being a waste of energy for these visitors (there being no nectar to retrieve), they would be more likely to move to another more predictable source of food, thus leaving some of the flowers on the plant unpollinated. Many species appear to have overcome this problem by evolving a strategy whereby, after pollination has been achieved, the flowers become unattractive to pollinators. The Dune Evening Primrose (Oenothera drummondiz) is one such plant that may use this strategy. It is a perennial dwarf bush with large, attractive, yel low flowers that open before sunset. Once pollinated (and also after natural senescence) the flowers begin to shrivel and 'blush', through a series of suc cessive 'less yellow' colours, to an orange-red. Hawkmoths and honeybees-the species' main pollinators-are attracted only to the yellow, open flowers and ignore the dark, shrivelling ones. It was this observation that prompted two botanists from Tel Aviv University in Israel to research the matter more closely (Bot. ]. Linn. Soc. 95: 101-111; 1987). In an at tempt to pinpoint just what it was that triggered the petals to change colour and shape, Dr D. Eisikowitch and Z. Lazar simu lated insect activity at the � flowers and monitored any sub- � L------' � 186 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY UV or not UV? The Answer's They have isolated three of in the Coral these compounds from the Staghorn Coral (Acropora for What do the dashboard of mosa) and shown that, in combi your car, the skin on your back, nation, the three compounds and the corals of the Great Bar provide a broad-band filter rier Reef have in common? against UV radiation at wave They are all exposed to the lengths capable of damaging or damaging ultraviolet (UV) radi even killing the corals. ation in sunlight. Your dash As it happens, those wave board may fade and crack and lengths fall within the range your back may develop skin can considered responsible for sun cers, but the reef-building burn and skin cancer in people. corals seem to suffer few ill Other researchers at the Uni effects from prolonged ex versity of Sydney have shown posure to UV light. that you don't have to suffer A common belief is that solar sunburn to get skin cancer, add UV radiation is stopped within ing to the concern that the first few centimetres of the sunscreen creams may not be ocean surface, thus explaining providing enough protection the coral's escape from harm. A against skin cancer. A joint de recent report, however, notes velopment between AIMS and that in clear tropical waters ICI Australia Ltd has shown that solar UV light has a significant the coral compounds hold out biological effect to a depth of 20 hope for more effective metres (Aust. Sci. Tech. News/. sunscreens to be developed 1(6): l; 1989). ones that will stop sunburn as Drs Walter Dunlap, Bruce well as warding off skin cancer. Chalker and Wickramasinghe The unlocking of the coral's Bandaranayake, of the Aus secret may also pave the way tralian Institute of Marine Sci for better protection against the ence, have now shown that damaging effects of UV light on corals in shallow waters protect synthetic materials such as plas Staghom Corals are protected against UV radiation by a broad-band filter. themselves from synthesising tics, paints, varnishes and, yes, Analysis of the compounds involved may shed light on more effective UV-absorbing amino acids. car dashboards. -8.8. sunscreensfor humans. Eight months later, when the for each animal, providing major dives were deeper than 500 Record Dives for seals returned to Macquarie new insights into the seals' be metres, although they showed a Elephant Seals Island to breed, the scientists haviour and feeding habits at marked preference to dive were able to recover nine sea. shallower at night. But the re A respectable amount is TDRs, six of which had The seals spent 90 per cent cord went to one animal that known about what Southern El functioned perfectly. The in of their time under water, mak achieved a 1,198-metre dive, ephant Seals (Mirounga struments can record depth ing them the most 'aquatic' of all deeper than had been reliably leonina) do on land, when these every 30 seconds and water the seals. On average, their recorded for any other diving blubbery giants come ashore to temperature every five min dives lasted 30 minutes, vertebrate. moult and breed near southern utes, for up to 70 days. They re although some went as long as Astonishingly, the seals spent waters. But their activities at corded as many as 4,130 dives two hours. Up to 40 per cent of an average of just two minutes sea, where they spend the ma on the surface between dives, jority of their time, have been a even after very long periods of virtual mystery until recently. what would have been anaer The emergence of reliable in obic diving. That discovery struments for recording the be suggests they have developed haviour of diving vertebrates, unusual physiological ways of however, is changing all that. coping with oxygen-debt prob A spectacular example of the lems. technology's potential has been They may also be dependent demonstrated by Mark Hindell, on deep-water food resources a Queensland University zool not available to any other ver ogist, and David Slip and Harry tebrate predators or human Burton, both biologists with the fishing activities. Knowing more Australian Government's Ant about those resources may be a 3 arctic Division (ANARE News key to understanding why � March 1989: 8). Southern Elephant Seal popu- � At sub-Antarctic Macquarie lations have declined by about � Island in early 1988, they at 50 percent in the last 30 years. :i:: V tached time-depth recorders 5 (TDRs) to six adult males -8.B. (weighing in at about three �:,: tonnes each) and to 13 adult fe Q males (about 400 kilograms Southern Elephant Seals currently hold the record for the deepest dives. Bob Beale, SydneyMorning each). The seals were near the Deeper dives have only been estimatedfor the other species, but never ac Herald's science writer, is a end of their annual moult. curately recorded. r ular contributor to C. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 l 87 Control of the Curse mid-1980 in New South Wales, is certainly an underestimate.) 1988, and made colonies avail but drought and grasshoppers All States and territories then able to New South Wales, South The European weed Echium prevented establishment. Then, passed complementary legis Australia and WesternAustralia plantagineum became estab in July 1980, two beekeepers lation and made similar declar- for their own release pro lished in Australia in the 1850s, and two graziers obtained an in ations. grams.) both by accidental and deliber junction from the High Court In late 1986 CSIRO was at Finally in October 1988 the ate introduction. Although a pri that prevented further releases last able to apply for lifting of Court decided unanimously in ority for biological control since of the insects. Thus began the the perpetual injunction, which CSIRO's favour and awarded all 1971, several hitches had first most intense conflict in the his had halted the program for over costs against the original four to be overcome. tory of biological control. six years at a cost of some $180 plaintiffs. Thus, after more than The common names of the Repeated unsuccessful at million to the country. How eight years of legal consider plant-Paterson's Curse and tempts were made to resolve ever, legal debate continued for ation, biological control of Salvation Jane-reflect its in the conflict, and CSIRO was another two years, during which Echium was approved. The in herent controversy as a weed. forced to accept a perpetual in the legislation-challenged by junction was formally lifted in Most people consider it a weed junction in June 1983. This the beekeeper and grazier November 1988 and CSIRO im because it is poisonous and, at meant that no further work on plaintiffs-was declared valid. mediately began importing the certain stages of its develop biological control of Echium (The validation of the legislation leaf-mining moth and one of the ment, kills grazing animals; it could be undertaken in Australia meant that other approved bio- root weevils ( C. larvatus). Who pays for biological con trol of Echium? The IAC ident ified the livestock industry as the greatest potential benefici ary of successful biological con trol of Echium. Thus, after ap plication by CSIRO to the Aus tralian Meat and Livestock Re search and Development Cor poration and to the Australian Wool Corporation, funding for the program was approved. Biological control is the only long-term economically and ecologically satisfactory strat egy for management of Echium. The plant is an annual, repro ducing only by seed, and seed banks exceed 100,000 per square metre! Seeds can also live in the soil for many years. It will therefore take several years for the agents to build up to The beauty imparted to the rurallandscape by Paterson's Cursebelies the fact that the weed is detrimentalto Australian agriculture. Inset: an adult levels at which they reduce or leaf-mining moth-the firstbiological control agent releasedto control the stop seed production over a weed.The caterpillars destroy tissue as theyfeed inside the leaves. widespread area but, because agents attack the critical life until such time as the injunction logical control groups could im- stages of Echium, the program was lifted. port Echium biological control should be successful. In ad reduces the value of pasture by Meanwhile, the world's first agents, although the CSIRO dition, and importantly, there is crowding out more beneficial biological control legislation was was still blocked. The Keith now a fair mechanism to resolve species, invades natural areas passed in 1984 and, under the Turnbull Research Institute, conflicts in biological control. and interferes with native veg legislation, the Industries As Victoria, imported and released -E.S. Delfosse etation, and causes allergic re sistance Commission (IAC) con the leaf-mining moth in mid- CSIRO Division of Entomology actions in some people. On the ducted an inquiry into whether other hand, some beekeepers Echium should be a target of INSECT SPECIES APPROVED FOR BIOLOGICAL CONTROL and a minority of others con biological control. There were OF PA TERSON'S CURSE sider it to be beneficial because over 600 submissions, most it flowers very early in the supporting biological control, Plant Part(s) spring, produces a high-quality and public hearings were held to Species Common Name Attacked pollenthat increases the quality get additional input. The inquiry of the hive, is used to produce lasted 11 months. Dialectica leaf-mining moth leaf and stem scalariella epidermis honey and summer grazing fod The IAC Final Report (caterpillar) der in some areas (despite being (March 1986) recommended poisonous), and contributes to Echium be declared a target for Longitarsus aeneus flea beetles leaf (adult) and root the beauty of the rural land biological control, the eight in and L. echii (larva) scape. sect species as agents, and the The CSIRO investigated the program to be managed by gov Phytoecia stem-boring leaf (adult) and natural enemies of Echium in ernment agencies and sup coerulescens beetle stem (larva) Mediterranean Europe. Four of ported by public funding. The Dictylaechii and cell-sucking bugs rosette and stem the first eight insect species IAC concluded that the program D. nassata (adult and nymph) found to be safe for introduction would have total potential ben were imported in 1979-80. Re efits of $30 million per annum. Ceutorhynchus root weevils leaf (adult) and root leases of the leaf-mining moth (As this figure was based on the geographicusand (larva) Dialectica scalariella began in easily identified components, it C. larvatus 188 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY Monotremes Still have Some mined that the Platypus could Shocks in Store sense both steady and alternat E.J. BRILL ing voltages in their environ When European zoologists ment (fish respondto one or the ROBERTBROWN first set eyes on the Platypus, B other), such as those generated & �( they couldn't believe what they by the activity of shrimp and A saw. With an odd combination of other prey. ASS OCIA TES traits not normally associated More recently, 1-'roske's AUST PTY LTD with mammals, including egg team has found similar recep laying, a single reproductive and tors at the tip (only) of the snout P.O. BOX 413, CARINA QLD 4152 AUSTRALIA excretory passage, and venom of the Short-beaked Echidna TELEPHONE (07) 891 6839 FAX: (07) 891 1638 ous spurs, the monotremes ( Tachyglossus aculeatus). (Platypus and echidnas) were Proske suspects that the certainly thought to be a echidna's favourite food (ants strange bunch. And even today and termites) may give off weak Australia's they are still springing surprises electrical signals but as yet this on us. has not been proved. He be Greatest Rock Art Now, in the 1980s, has come lieves that such a sophisticated 100 ONLY LEATHER BOUND DELUXE EDITIONS IN SLIP CASE the discovery that the mono sensing system would be un NUMBERED AND SIGNED BY AUTHOR NOW AVAILABLE tremes share with some fishes likely to exist simply as an evol 324 Pages. 339 coloured plates the ability to detect electrical utionary hangover. One clue 350 x 250 mm ISBN 1 86273 013 X currents through special nerve towards its use as an electrical Only S129.95 receptors. Two West German detector may come from the anatomists, Karl Andres and fact that echidnas continually Monika von During, described have runny noses. Proske be the electro-receptors they lieves the nasal secretions may found on the bill of the Platypus provide an electrically conduc in 1984, and speculated that the tive medium that can carry tiny animal might use them to detect currents. water flows (see ANH vol. 21, An article detailing these re no. 11, p. 485). A team led by cent discoveries will be included Uwe Proske of Monash Univer in the next issue of ANH. Trade and retail enquiries should contact the above sity, in Melbourne, later deter- address for booklist and further information -B.B. WILDERNESS EXPEDITIONS AbseilingAdventures & Canyoning - Introductory and Advanced weekends in the Blue Mountains $245. Ballooning - Sunrise flights and champagne breakfast in the Camden and Hunter Valleys $105. Mudgee $150. Cross Country Skiing - Snowy Mountains, 2-7 days, weekends from $195 beginners to advanced. Cycling - Days near Sydney, Blue Mountains, Snowy Mountains, weekends from $165. Horseriding - in the Blue Mountains, Snowy Mountains and New England, 5 days from $460. 4 Wheel Drive - Blue Mountains and Pioneer Country, 7 days $675. Red Centre, Sydney to Alice Springs, 13 days $1460. Walking - Blue Mountains, Ku-ring-gai National Park, Barrington Tops, Watagon Forest, Buddawang 1-7 days from $35. White Water Rafting - Shoalhaven, Gwydir, Upper Murray and Nymboida Rivers 2 days from $225. For more information contact Wilderness Expeditions � 37 York St, Sydney (02) 290 3222 W�t�S� or Toll Free (008) 221 931. lf.,J... o.1/'f ·"' {.1,,.,,1,.,, I.IC No. 2TA 001198 Dr Uwe Proske holds an electrosensitive echidna. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 189 To Cast a Stone preferences of both stones and bird was born in a year when Spiders that Smell eggs, and stone-throwing abili Ostrich eggs were few, for ex Stone-throwing behaviour of ties. Indeed they found no evi ample, that bird may never When answering public in Egyptian Vultures to break into dence to support the idea that learn the association. And even quiries one is sometimes forced Ostrich eggs is well known. the birds learn to break eggs though vultures appear to have to open jars containing very Once an egg is spotted, the vul with stones by copying other in a natural propensity for dead spiders. The smell that ture will fly down to it, pick up a dividuals. Observations on throwing objects, young de emanates is quite incredible stone in its beak, straddle the hand-reared vultures showed prived of knowing the egg-food (although not, perhaps, in the egg, cast the stone repeatedly that young birds can develop the associationwould also fail to as same league as the odours that until the shell cracks, and then technique in isolation. Although sociate stone-throwing behav occasionally emerge from the eat the contents. stone-thro\ving behaviour can iour as a means to obtain food. Bird Room down the corridor). Ostriches (Struthio came/us) develop without cultural trans But how would stone-throw Of course, one expects dead and Egyptian Vultures (Neo mission, it does apear to require ing behaviour to break into Os things to smell off, so it comes phron percnopterus) are both triggering at some stage in the trich eggs have evolved from an as rather a surprise to find a widespread in East Africa. bird's life. The trigger appears ancestor that had no tendency spider that smells as bad alive as Although other opportunistic to be the realisation that an Os to throw stones? In 1970 J. dead. scavenging birds also live in the trich egg equals food. The hand Alcock from the University of Two such spiders from north area, stone-throwing behaviour reared birds, although inter Washington suggested that the ern Queensland were collected appears to be unique to these ested in the eggs (as they were throwing of small eggs (for the recently by wildlife film pro vultures. with other novel objects) purpose of breaking them) may ducers Densey Clyne and Jim Interest in stone-throwing by showed no interest in stoning have been redirected when an Frazier. I identified the spiders the Egyptian Vulture stems them. It was only after being Egyptian Vulture came across as Phrynarachne decipiens from the fact that any form of shown the 'contents' of an Os an Ostrich egg (ibis 112: 524). (Forbes), a crab spider of the tool use in non-human animals is trich egg that they started Finding the egg too big to pick family Thomisidae that also oc relatively uncommon, and it stoning whole eggs. In the wild, up, the bird may have reverted curs in the tropical areas to the represents one of the very few opportunities that reveal the to other objects such as stones north of Australia. Most examples of tooluse observed in link between Ostrich eggs and to break the egg. If aimed stone Phrynarachne species have wild birds (see article on Palm food would be numerous. The throwing did evolve from squat, dull-coloured bodies. Cockatoos, ANH vol. 22, no. 5, young, which remain with their unaimed egg-throwing behav They sit motionless on leaves 1987). In addition, there re parents after fledging, may ob iour, one would expect an in· and look like pieces of detritus mains some debate about the serve their parents breaking herent preference for egg or bird droppings. Phrynar origin of stone-throwing behav into eggs or they may observe shaped missiles. Indeed, m achne decipiens, however, is the iour in birds. It had previously eggs already broken into by Thouless et al.'s experiments nonpareil of the bird dung mim been presumed that the behav other scavengers, such as hy they found that rounded stones icking fraternity. Not only is the iour of stone-throwing to break enas. (as opposed to jagged ones) were spider coloured creamy white open Ostrich eggs was A large variation in the stone preferred by both wild and naive and dark brown-black but it sits culturally transmitted; that is, throwing abilities of wild birds hand-reared birds (even in their upon a pad of silk onto which it by young birds observing and was observed. This, the authors earliest throwing attempts); and places its own runny faeces. imitating experienced adults. suggest, may reflect a critical wild birds, when presented with The spider forms the solid, This was largely based on the stage in the young bird's life, small eggs, threw them pro lumpy cream and brown flecked observation of a captive-reared during which they may or may ficiently. centre of the 'dropping', while bird that, when presented with not have experienced the Os -G.H. the rather messy faecal silk pad an Ostrich egg, sat on it, rather trich egg-food association. If a provides the watery, greyish than throwing stones at it. Little cream outer parts. Seen in a evidence exists to support this Vultures often cast stones at Ostrich eggs to break them open. natural setting upon the broad view and other explanations are leaf of a rainforest plant the possible. Individual Egyptian spider's bird dropping disguise Vultures could, either by trial is very convincing. Indeed, H.O. and error or perhaps through Forbes, the original collector some degree of insight into the and describer of P. decipiens (in relationship of moving stones, the 1880s from Sumatra), was cracked shells and food, learn to so deceived that he accidentally do it independently. Alter placed a finger on a 'bird drop natively, the behaviour may be ping' and only realised it was a innate with vultures being spider when "it. .. flashed its selected according to their falces into my flesh" (Proc. Zool. ability to throw stones at and Soc. Lond. 1883: 586-588). � eat the contents of Ostrich Forbes described the dung � eggs. mimicking habit of the spider ;,i In order to address the (with some arresting inaccur i!: controversy surrounding the acies) but made no reference to origin of this stone-throwing be faeces beingassociated with the e:!� haviour, C.R. Thouless, from silk pad or to any smell. � the Large Animal Research Resemblance to a bird drop 0 Group in Cambridge, and col ping, although seemingly unflat � leagues carried out exper tering, does have its advan @ iments on wild and hand-reared tages. It provides such spider � Egyptian Vultures in Kenya mimics with the valuable benefit '.S (ibis 131: 9-15; 1989). By of of not being eaten, especially by � fering varying numbers, shapes, birds-a nice irony. Consider § sizes and combinations of fibre then what additional advantages :r glass eggs and stones, the might accrue if one not only i authors were able to observe looked like a 'turd' but smelt 190 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY decipiens is the only species that has taken the further adaptive step of developing a fetid prey attracting odour to go with its dung-like appearance. The only other spiders known to emit prey-attracting odours are a few araneid spiders (relatives of the orb web weavers) that specialise in catching male moths (see ANH vol. 23, no.2). In these cases the spider's scent lure mimics that of certain female moths and can only be 'smelt' by the appropri ate male moths. Just where the fetid smell of P. decipiens comes from is un certain. The faeces-impreg nated silk pad remains smelly long after the spider has been removed and, once off its pad, the spider no longer seems to smell. This suggests that the spider's silk or faeces may con Phrynarachne decipiens not only decaying matter. One P. chemical sense of 'smell' to lo tain the smelly substance. looks like a turd but smells like one decipiens specimen in northern cate faecal matter in the dim Equally, the spider may simply too. Queensland was observed eat rainforests, and clearly P. turn off its body scent pro ing a cockroach; and others kept decipiens takes full advantage of duction mechanism when it is like one too. on shrubs in a greenhouse were this. disturbed. Whatever the The odour given off by P. seen to capture blowflies. In this It seems, then, that this re answer, this spider's down decipiens is difficult to describe regard Forbes' original obser markable spider has evolved market combination of looks other than as fetid and faecal. vations in West Java are particu both a protective and a prey and perfume has provided it Observation and inference larly interesting because he no catching strategy based upon with a unique and successful suggest that the spider uses its ticed that one spider had cap dung mimicry. A number of lifestyle. scent to attract certain sorts of tured a dung-feeding butterfly. other spiders also mimic dung -Mike Gray insect prey that are attracted to These butterflies probably use a but, to my knowledge, P. Australian Museum • .--C _AM _B_R_ID_G_E _U_N _I_V_E_R _S I_TY_P_ R_E_S _S _•_C_ AM_ B_R_I_D_G_E _ U_ N_IV_ E_R_SITY_ __ P_ RE_S_S • � Charles Darwin in Australia o F.W. NICHOLAS and I.M. NICHOLAS WALKINGNATURETREK WILDLIFE HOLIDAYS � The definitive account of Darwin·s 0:, & NATURAL HISTORY TOURS ::v Australian visit in 1836; this beautiful 0 In the World's book is a must for all Darwin enthusiasts. G) tT1 Includes previously unpublished notes most beautiful and later writings. � Lavishly illustrated. including works by < regions Augustus Earle and Conrad Martens. � shipmates of Darwin aboard the Beagle. en 40 colour illustrations ::;! 100 half-tones and line illustrations -o ::v 280pp tT1 en Devised by David Mills, expertin 0 521 34358 5 $45.00 en Himalayan and African ornithology, and led by David and other expert and • professional naturalists. Australian INDIA NEPAL Society KENYA BHUTAN ZAMBIA LADAKH TURKEY ZANSKAR ETHIOPIA KASHMIR GALAPAGOS MOROCCO INDONESIA BOTSWANA NEW ZEALAND TANZANIA For our 1989 brochure, plHH contHt: LANDPAC TOURS, GPO Box G397, Perth 6001, WESTERN AUSTRALIA. Tel: (09) 322 5372/INWATS (008) 998 558 Licence no. 9TA00157 191 If global warming occurs, Snow Gums, which typically occur at the top of predicted by the greenhouse ef forest of the Brindabella Range the tree-line, could increase their altitude considerably. fect theory, Snow Gums could near Canberra,Snow Gums are advance considerably in alti typically replaced downslope Growing Gums in the tudinal ranges (from Queens tude. That would probably hap by Broad-leaved Peppermint Greenhouse land to Tasmania) of any euca pen only slowly, however, notes Gums (Eucalyptus dives) at lypt. Jann Williams (Ascent 17: 24- about 1,240 metres above sea As a group, the eucalypts Ecological studies by a team 25; 1989), a member of the level. Peppermint Gums seem have shown themselves to be at the Research School of Bio team. Viable seeds would have unable to advance higher due to plants that are able to survive logical Sciences at the Aus to find their way upslope. environmental factors. But, if and prosper in an amazingly di tralian National University have At the lower end of the Snow global warming occurs, the cli verse range of habitats, from shown recently that the Snow Gum's present range in the matic barrier that now inhibits the cool, wet coastal rainforests Gum has the potential to extend highlands, Williams has shown the Peppermint Gum's advance to the parched heat of central its altitude range even further. that transplanted seedlings will into Snow Gum territory may Australia. The team has shown that, in the grow quite successfully down be lifted, allowing it to climb One of the most adaptable in right conditions, Snow Gums slope from their current limits. higher upslope as well. dividual species is the Snow can germinate from seed and If they can grow at lower alti If nothing else, the studies il Gum (Eucalyptus pauciflora). It grow to reproductive maturity tudes, why don't they? The lustrate the complexities of try has the largest altitudinal range up to 200 metres above the pre answer lies not in climate, but in ing to predict how flora and (from near sea-level to the top sent tree-line in the Snowy competition from other euca fauna in any given area would be of the tree-line in the Australian Mountains. lypts. affected by climatic change. Alps) and one of the largest lati- If global warming occurs, as In the case of the sub-alpine -B.8. Chicken Vindaloo or Sweet Archaeol. Sci. 15: 515-533; and Sour? 1988). Radiocarbon dating esti Most archaeologists have, mates show the oldest chicken until recently, agreed that bones to have come from people first domesticated Cishan, in north-eastern China. chickens in the Indus Valley The bones were longer than (Pakistan) about 4,000 years those of the ancestral Red ago, and that they spread Jungle Fowl (domestic form through Mesopotamia and Gallus gal/us) and smaller than Greece, and, with the help of modern chickens, and they the Celts, throughout Europe. were too far north for any nat But new evidence suggests that urally occurring species of wild people have been breeding bet jungle fowl. West and Zhou be ter drumsticks for much longer lieve it would have been unlikely than that, and that chickens for the birds to arrive in what reached Europe by quite a dif were then freezing conditions ferent route. (as now) without human help. Barbara West, of the British Both believe the domestic Museum (Natural History), and chicken originated further south Ben-Xiong Zhou, of the Institute than China, but they differ on of Archaeology in Beijing, how it reached Europe from suggest that chickens were first there. Zhou favours the old Silk domesticated 4,000 years Route through Turkistan, while earlier in South-East Asia U. West favours a more northerly route through the steppes of the Soviet Union. When and where were chickens first domesticated? -B.B. 192 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY First Lord Howe, then escens), were exterminated be the World cause they fancied the settlers' orchards and crops. Ten years ago there were The Woodhen would have just 22 Lord Howe Island disappeared in a flurry of Woodhens (Tricholimnas feathers, too, but for a creeping sylvestris) left on Earth. Only awareness of the Woodhen's three healthy breeding pairs plight in the late 1960s when survived and the Woodhen the first Woodhen survey by seemed destined for oblivion. John Disney of the Australian Thanks, however, to an amaz Museum and Peter Fullagar of ingly successful captive breed the CSIRO showed that the bird ing and wild release program was on the downhill slide to ex (not to mention $300,000 worth tinction. Responding to the of funding from the National growing concerns of the outside Parks and Wildlife Foundation), world, the Lord Howe residents it appears that there are now finally began to develop a new more than 220 Woodhens alive protective feeling towards the and clucking. Woodhen. Apart from the extermination As each year passed that feel of feral pigs and goats from ing intensified-so much so that Lord Howe Island, the underly visitors to Lord Howe today are ing reason for the Lord Howe struck by the extraordinary de Island Woodhen's ten-fold in gree to which a rather drab crease in a decade has, undoubt looking, olive-brown rail has edly, been the changed attitude taken on what one tourist of the 300 Lord Howe Island suggested was "virtually the residents. status of a fertility God". The From the earliest days of locals let Woodhens scurry human visitation to Lord Howe, around their yards, feed them the Woodhen was primarily cheese and biscuits, give them looked upon as an easily attain nicknames and call up the auth able source of food. One of the orities if any of them go missing. first sightings of the Lord Howe According to Cameron Island Woodhen occurred on 16 Leary, National Parks and May 1788 when the Lady Wildlife Service Ranger on Lord Penrhyn stopped at the island. Howe, the residents have At the time, ship's surgeon grown so fond of the W oodhen Arthur Bowes wrote in his that they would be "running and journal about " ...a curious knocking down doors if some brown Bird abt. the size of the thing was happening to the Land Reel in England walking Woodhen". totally fearless and unconcem'd From being down and almost in all part around us, so that we out, the Lord Howe Island had nothing more to do than Woodhen now apparently faces stand still a minute or two and bright days ahead. Apart from knock down as many as we owls who take a fancy to pleas'd with a short stick. ..they W oodhen chicks and a never made the least attempt to rumoured sole-surviving pig on fly away". the loose, the bird no longer has Lord Howe Island was a con any serious (that is, species venient resting-place for ships threatening) predators to con sailing between Sydney and the front. Even domestic cats and penal colony on Norfolk Island. dogs on the island do not seem It was eventually settled in to trouble the Woodhen. The 1834 because it affordedwater cats are either too old or too and a plentiful supply of food lazy and the dog population re (Woodhen being very much part mains distinctly cautious (the of the menu). meanest dog on the island, a Unfortunately, the settlers bull-terrier called Marvin, was got carried away with the bush seen running from a Woodhen, tucker, to such an extent, in having suffered a crushing blow fact, that to date no less than to his canine ego). nine species of endemic land With the continued respect of birds on Lord Howe have be the locals-indeed, loving come extinct. Many, such as the attention-it is hard to imagine White Gallinule (Notornis alba) anything interrupting the and the Lord Howe Pigeon Woodhen's onward march, ex ( Columba vitiensis godmanae), cept perhaps an unforeseen were literally eaten out of exist natural calamity. ence. Others, such as the Lord -Toby Jones Does anyone know what this photograph may illustrate? Why not write Howe Parrakeet ( Cyanoram National Parks and Wildlife down your suggestionsand send them in to us? Theanswer will bepub phus novaezelandiae subfl,av- Foundation lishedin the next issue of ANH. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R l 9 8 9-90 193 FROM THE ARCHIVES William Spurling (mate and conchologist), Gittings (the cook) and two seamen, "Returning at the appointed time, Strange sailed from Sydney on 4 Septem Hill was met by the Aboriginal ber 1854. Just prior to departure he do collector who told him Strange nated "some rare shells" to the Australian Museum where his friend George French had been speared and the others Angas was then Secretary. waddied to death. " On 29 September, the Vision sailed from Moreton Bay with an Aboriginal collector added to the crew, ready to start the real work of the cruise. After a brief stopover at a small island off Cape Capricorn, the Vision anchored at No. 2 Percy Island on 14 October. The Percy Islands (21 °42' S, A STRANGETALE ° 150 20' E) are north-east of Shoalwater Bay, central Queensland, about 50 kilo metres from the nearest point on the main land and 25 kilometres from the nearest islands. They are continental islands, not BY IAN LOCH coral cays, and had already become estab lished as a convenient anchorage for ships MALACOLOGYSECTION, AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM using the inner route through the Great 1------1 Barrier Reef. A string of islands along the MONGST THE SPECIMENS HELD IN north Queensland coast were favoured be- the Australian Museum mollusc col- cause of easy anchorage and/or permanent lections is a pink bivalve, Nemo- water. The mainland coast was as that time Acardium bechei (Reeve, 1840) named for largely unexplored on a local scale, the har- Sir Henry de la Beche, Director of Ord- bours of all the present large towns not hav- nance Survey and President of the Geologi- ing yet been discovered. The central ea! Society in London. This specimen has a Queensland area was then referred to as poignant history, for it was the last find of the Wide Bay district, the furthest north Frederick Strange, collected the day before European pastoral expansion had reached. he was killed by Aborigines at Percy Island Rockhamptonwas not established until the offcentral Queensland in 1854. following year. Over this decade the effec- Strange was one of a notable group of tiveness of Aboriginal resistance halted and professional collectors of natural history even turnedback pastoral expansion. specimens (a respectable Victorian occu- A small party went ashore and made pation), intimately involved in the explo- friendly contact with the Aborigines on ration of Australia. Like many of his Percy Island. Returningon board, dredging contemporaries, he was to find that the cost by Strange yielded the specimen of of novelties could be high.Born at Aylsham Nemocardium bechei. On the morningof 15 in Norfolk, England, Strange came to South October, Strange, Hill, Spurling, Spinks, Australia in about 1836. In 1838 he accom- Gittings and the Aboriginal collector went panied a party led by Charles Sturt to ashore to collect, Strange being the only Stranges Creek near Gawler, and another one armed with a double-barrelled gun. The party separated, Walter Hill going in- in 1839 to the north-west corner of the Frederick5trange was spearedby Aboriginesat Murray River near present-day Morgan, Percy Island shortly after collecting a new land to botanise. Returning at the ap- during which one man died and others had speciesof pink bivalve. pointed time, Hill was met by the Aborigi- to drink horse blood to survive thirst. nal collector who told him Strange had been Strange then moved to New South Wales, large natural history collections. These speared and the others waddied to death. married Rosa Prince, started a family and consisted of plants, insects, birds' eggs and The pair hidamongst rocks until after dark settled down to business as a collector mollusc shells. The shells were purchased when they managed to get back to the around New South Wales. His wife kept a en masse by Hugh Cuming, a London Vision, which then limped its way to Bris boarding house near the Rocks, known as collector-turned-dealer whose large collec- bane. the Naturalist's Home. Various naturalist tions formed a major part of the British Mu- When the news reached Sydney, Angas collectors of the period, such as John Gil- seum collections when purchased for the composed the following valedictory verses bert, John Macgillivray of HMS Fly, and nation subsequent to his death. Strange's (only the first and last of nine included): John Gould stayed there when in Sydney. name is liberally scattered through the Strange continued to supply John Gould in species described in many genera from Australia! for thine onward march England with specimens and, when Cuming's collection. How many a son of science fell. Shall not thy bards offuture years Leichhardt's party was overdue at Port With extensive contacts made in Eng Their deeds of noble daring tell? Essington and presumed Jost, proposed land, Strange and his family returned to that he replace Gilbert as Gould's collector. Sydney in 1853, starting a naturalist's shop Alas, poor Strange! 'tis will to know Gould demurred in the hope that in Bridge Street. Then in 1854 he entered Australia hath a heart to feel; Leichhardt would return, which he did but into a share agreement with J.C. Rossiter To wipe away thy orphans'tears without Gilbert who had been speared and and G. Korff for a collecting and trading trip Thy widow's broken heart to heal. killed by Aborigines. Strange carried on to the islands off the north-east of Australia. collecting, visitingNew Zealand (mainly the This was one of the earliest privately As for the pink bivalve, "regarded at the South Island) in the late 1840s on HMS funded scientific voyages in Australia. The time as unique", the Governor, Sir William Acheron. By 1850 he had extended his col- ketch Vision was purchased and, together Denison (himself a Trustee of the Aus lecting to Moreton Bay (then still part of with George Maitland (master), Walter Hill tralian Museum) and Angas tried New South Wales) and in 1852 returned to Oater first Colonial Botanist in Queens unsuccessfully to purchase it for their pri England with his expanding family and land), Richard Spinks (Strange's assistant), vate collections. Eventually the Curator, 194 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY W.S. Wall, persuaded Strange's widow to the Australian Museum some years ago, present the specimen to the Australian Mu dredged by the late Mr. F. Strange at Percy seum. Unfortunately, no record of this do Island; one specimen was purloined by a nation can be found today. gentleman who at one time held an appoint In the best colonial tradition, a gunboat ment in that institution". HMTorch (a paddle steamer) called at No. Th.isbeing brought to Angas' attention in 2 Percy Island in February 1855 and ar England, his letter of 15 September 1878 rested ten Aborigines (three males, three frostily changed from the usual "My dear females and four children) who were Brazier" to "Dear Sir" and condemned the brought before the Water Police Court in "anonymous imputation of a very serious Sydney. Problems arose when no-one could kind affecting the honour and character of be found who could communicate with the several individuals, myself among the num accused. Their subsequent fate is unknown. ber, who have from time to time held office l�rete Mi The trip was not completely wasted, how in the Australian Museum". This was the See Special People ever, as Lieutenant Chimmo R.N. collected same conclusion I had come to prior to what became the type specimens of Helix reading Angas' correspondence held in the mucida Pfeiffer, 1856 (= Ramogenia Mitchell Library. Angas described the ac mucida, a chloritid land snail). quisition in detail, stating there was only Things became quiet for the bivalve, "af ever one specimen and demanding fixed to a card tablet" in the Museum. A Brazier's source of information. Unfor power struggle between the Curator Wall tunately Brazier's reply of November 1878 and Secretary Angas saw first Wall and cannot be traced here or in England, but later Angas 'retired' after conflict over the the reply from Angas in May 1879 accepts smell of Wall's dog faeces in the basement, his explanation that reference to Angas was the accusation that Angas was painting on not intended and lets the matter drop, Museum time, and the theft of shells. "although the statement apparently Angas returned to England where he pointed to me rather than to others, my For Special Gear started publishing extensively on Aus being so well known as a collector of Mountain Equipment is tralian shells, many of which were sent to shells". Nor can any record of accession be Sydney·s leading specialist outdoor him in the 1860s and 1870s by John found to indicate if Brazier had been mis sports shop. with twenty years of Brazier, a Sydney conchologist, son of a sea led into his libellous statement. captain and husband of Sophia Rossiter, the In a final footnote, there is a specimen of experience. daughter of Thomas Rossiter who years Nemocardium bechei from the Percy Whether it's walking in the previously had providentially saved Edward Islands in the Museum of Victoria, which Blue Mountains John Eyre on the Great Australian Bight. was donated by the Reverend J.E. Tenison Strange's silent partner, J.C. Rossiter, was Woods in 1880. It would be interesting to or scaling the a brother or a son. A long amiable corre know from whose hand the Reverend ac Himalayas. our staff spondence arose between Brazier and quired his specimen and whether this rep have done it and Angas until, in 1877, Brazier published resents the phantom second specimen can assist you with "Notes on Laevicardium Beechei" record "purloined by a gentleman". • ing the presence of this still rare species the right advice on from the Torres Straits, Cape Grenville Mr Ian loch is the Collection Manager of Molluscs the largest range of and (from his brother-in-law R.C. Rossiter) at the Australian Museum. Care of these historical camping. trekking New Caledonia, and mentioning at the end collections has stimulated his interest in colonial "there were two fine living specimens in science. and climbing equipment in Sydney. As an independent retailer. The pink bivalve, Nemocardium be<.hei, collected from Percy Island, Queensland, by Frederick Mountain E4uipment Strange in 1854. stock all the major brands from Australia and overseas. For Special Places Whatever your needs. we have it - from sleeping bags through to thermal wear. parkas. stoves. cookware and footwear. Contact us now. With our range and experiencewe can make your next adventure truly special. �------For your free equipment brochure please wnll' co MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT 291 SUSSEX ST. SYDNEY 2000 TEL (021 264 3146 Name ______� .f Address______g Posuait ____ Tel ______.______i ______, WILD JULY/AUG/SEPT 1989 V O L U M E 2 3 N U M 8 E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 l gS blankets or covering of any description. They relied on the plants among the flats "Alice's brief descriptionsof such foods are important ethnographic and sandhills to provide them with food for data, for theyare among the few recordsof the diet of Channel their journey, supplemented with the small CountryAborigines. " game which infested the plains and gibber country... "They would find kooni, the red rosy Pigweed spread over gravelly flats or about sandhills; curda, another fleshy plant of the OUT Portulaca order. ..Gins scraped the sands for the witooka, a brittle, radish-like root, or dug for sweet onion bulbs called MOORABERREE tallcull i." Alice's brief descriptions of such foods are important ethnographic data, for they are among the few records of the diet of WAY Channel Country Aborigines. In 1943, anthropologists T.H. Johnston and J.B. Cleland attempted to identify the plants. BY TIM LOW They bravely identified witookaas a tarvine (Boerhavia tallculli NATURE WRITER species) and as bulbine Wy (Bulbine species), and gave many other �------i names, some of which are almost certainly ARLIER THIS YEAR I TRAVELLED known being Our Channel Country(Angus incorrect. through the famous Channel Country & Robertson, 1933). Alice's books hold Some of Alice's most notable obser of south-western Queensland-an great interest to me, for they vividly re- vations concern the storage of grain. Once extraordinaryE stretch of desert steeped in count the ways of the Channel Country she was out with two Aboriginal stockmen, Aboriginal and colonial history. I was just Aborigines early this century, including de- Bogie and George: "Looking hard at a leaving the township of Betoota, on the scriptions of many of their foods. notch on a smoothround stone, Bogie lifted Windorah to Birdsville dirt highway, when I At Mooraberree, as at other stations, it and dug beneath, unearthing some pattis passed a turnoff that made me jump. A Aboriginal men worked as stockmen and or seed-cakes; these were marked on the rough dirt road, wending north over a stony the women as domestics.Food and clothing upper surface with a circle and criss-cross gibber plain, bore the signpost were the only wages and the workers slept of red ochre. Bogie placed them hastily in "Mooraberree ". in gunyahs close to the homestead. Yet the hole again, covering them with the Mooraberree Station was the home of away from the house, Aborigines still main- stone. Not satisfied, he went off in another Alice Duncan-Kemp, a pioneer who wrote tained their traditions; they gathered foods direction and found another cache; these several books about outback life, the best- in the desert and camped in large groups at must have been the desired brand for Bogie all the permanent waterholes. Alice often and George bothseemed to enjoy snapping pattis The 'witooka' of Aborigines at Mooraberree encountered these people while mustering them with their poor teeth. The are was probably tarvine(Boerhavia species). These with her husband. Here is her account of hard flinty slabs made by the gins from small creepers sprout after rain on sandy soils one such meeting: grass-seeds found in black-ants' nests and and produce small brittle taproots that can be "The tattered tribal remnant before us baked to chips in primitive ovens." cookedand eaten. carried little in the way of food and no This anecdote is one of the most signifi- 196 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY cant accounts ever written of how Aborigi with roasted nuts or Mungaroo from the nes stored grain. Although Alice was evi roots of the nut-grass [ Cyperus bulbosus]." dently unimpressed by the "hard flinty'' Alice also told of Aborigines making In Cape York pattis, she reveals that some Aboriginal semi-intoxicating drinks by mixing the foodswere relished by the whites. Note her pounded flowers of the Bauhinia with native account of the native Bauhinia trees honey or honeypot ants, the liquid being left Peninsula, (Lysiphyllum gilvum): to ferment for eight or ten days. walk to beautiful Aboriginal rock art "When rains draw near, the old gins Alice's writings illustrate that Aborigi sites amongst the spectacular about the humestead wander up and down nes, contrary to popular belief, brewed al escarpments of the Quinkan Reserves the creeks scoring or cutting the bark with cohol, and stored and mixed foods. Her ob and stalk the waterbirds of Lakefield a tomahawk. After rain they visit the servations complement those of other National Park while staying at scored trees and gather the minni, a thick authors (such as Leichhardt and Petrie) Jowalbinna Bush Camp. 1 day, 2 day sweet sap which exudes from the cuts like about Aboriginal practices in other parts of and 4 day safaris ex Cairns. jellied honey-coloured gum; a great deli Australia. Unfortunately, her books have cacy among the blacks, who eat it straight long been out of print and are largely for from the tree. gotten, and Mooraberree today is just Dance, Art "White children consider minni an ex another Channel Country beef station. As cellent substitute for sweets, when cooked for the Aborigines-the Murranudda, & Mountains in a baking-dish with a little sugar and Ooloopooloo, Karanya and other tribes The Cape York Aboriginal Dance water for a couple of hours, and sprinkled their culture has been all but obliterated. • Festival at Laura. Trezise Bush Guide Service Treat from a trunk: toffee-likegum oozingfrom Tim Low B.Sc. is a full-time nature writer. He is the has a 3-day tour by air ex Cairns, the wild Bauhinia tree was eaten by Aborigines author of three wild food books, the latest being Bush combining dance and rock art. Also, a and colonists alike in outback Queensland. This Tucker, which includes articles reprinted from his new trip offeredby Stephen Trezise is specimenis as big as a plum. ANH column. a 3-day/2-night backpacking trip to the top of Mt Bartle Frere, Queensland's highest mountain near Cairns. This is the classic jungle mountain experience. For brochure: Trezise Bush Guide Service P.O. Box 106, Freshwater, Cairns 4870 Qld Phone: (070) 31 3574NH (070) 55 1865 We know CAIRNS, the GREAT BARRIER REEF,the rainforest, mountains and rivers, the rock art and bush of CAPE YORK PENINSULA and the wide expanses of THE GULF. � CAIRNS NORTH ::;: ;::: At the edge of Betoota Billabong in far western Queensland stands this fine Bauhinia tree. Alice TRAVEL Duncan-Kemp lived not far north of here and spoke of the tribesthat inhabited this bleak desert re PH.(070) 31 3574· A/H(070) 55 1865 i '----gion. ------....1 P.O. BOX 106, FRESHWATER. CAffiNS 4870 V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9 -90 197 p R 0 F L E hall of fame should have been automatic and straightforward. He, with three colleagues, "If scientific history is no more than a had worked out where the elements come from, how they are 'cooked' in stars to be succession of heroes, then most of us come the larger atoms like carbon, nitro can do little but watch in awe gen and iron from which living things are and some despair. " made. A fundamental insight, no question. Yet Sir Fred had also proposed two other theories of more questionable merit. First, on the origin of the universe, he suggested that hydrogen atoms are con tinuously 'created' in emptiness and that space goes on, more or less for ever, with WHIGGERY little change in appearance. Then, the Big Bang theory, beloved of Sir Fred's then Cambridge rival, the late Sir Martin Ryle, became widely accepted as astronomical observation seemed to confirm it beyond BY ROBYN WILLIAMS doubt. ABC SCIENCE SHOW The second, more recent in promul gation, is Sir Fred's concept of organic 'seeding' from outer space. He cannot ac cept that the evolution of living things can ISTORY IS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE TO Suzuki. Try naming three of those in any have taken place on Earth in the time avail the good health of science. If we field who've won a Nobel Prize in the last able. Therefore, he says, we must be know what our predecessors did ten years. John frardeen and Fred Sanger willing to countenance viruses or similar andH why, then we can ourselves proceed have two each in one subject. Are they entities coming to Earth on bits of comets with greater purpose. The trouble is that popularheroes like the Curies once were? or meteorites and, with their new genetic the history of science is often depicted as a We are nonetheless still prone to see sci material, giving evolution a 'push', even series of heroic events. You remember the ence as unfolding in an almost inevitable changing its direction profoundly. In this grandiose verse about the two titans of progression. One breakthrough follows the way he explains sudden leaps as one line in modem physics?: next and failures are forgotten. But failure the fossil record appears to give rise to Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night, another. Sir Fred has even told me that he God said "Let Newton be!" and all was light. sees diseases like the influenza outbreak of It did not last. The devil, crying "Ho! 1918 as coming from deep space! Let Einstein be!", restored the status quo. All goodjuicy stuff. But sufficient to lose -Alexander Pope Sir Fred a Nobel Prize in physics. Others Well, that's all very well but it does pre were recognised for the work on element sume, like so much of what's been called a formation to which he had contributed no 'whig' interpretation of history, that the small amount. Newtons and Einsteins are there waiting in But how will history record Sir Fred the wings, as Churchill appeared to be in "how will historyrecord Sir Hoyle's brief appearance in the scientific 1940, for the great moment to arrive. Fred Hoyle's brief firmament? Will he have a mixed but still When Einstein published his Theory of noteworthy inscription, rather like Lord Relativity in 1905, it was all but ignored. appearance in the scientific Kelvin (who was daft on radiation but solid Only one response came, in the first year, on much else)? Or shall we erase his awk to indicate that anyone had read it at all. It firmament? Will he have a ward memory because his ideas were too was only when Sir Arthur Eddington, 14 mixed but still noteworthy often wrong? years later, observed the eclipse of the sun Whiggery is unfortunate because it pre and managed to detect the slight bending of inscription? Or shall we sents science as a less human activity. If light from a star that Einstein became scientific history is no more than a suc world famous. Relativity itself remained of erase his awkward memory cession of heroes, then most of us can do little practical consequence until the 1950s, because his ideas weretoo little but watch in awe and some despair. but the man who proposed it had become But if we recognise the imperfections and legendary because he seemed to have oftenwrong?" the dead ends, the peccadilloesand the hic shown the world to be quite different from cups, then science becomes something for the way we once pictured it. all of us, whether we want to join in or not. Whiggery is accused of stepping over In terms of social history it is also valu such inconvenient details, of leaving out the able to view the Newtons, Darwins and failures and blind alleys, of setting aside the Hoyles as true products of their age, doing smaller players, of presenting the heroesas work that fits the preconceptions of life at if they dominated an era. We don't do that that time. Newton's astronomy was in with our present-day scientists though, be many ways in tandem with the era of Brit cause we assume quite naturally that re ish naval exploration and Darwin's evol search is teamwork, that even the greatest utionary theories were clearly influenced mind may have its blemish and that science is the essence of science: we set up ideas to by 19th-century capitalism. Seeing science simply doesn't operate that way. I mean, test them, supposedlyto knock them down in this way, as much a product as a force of just ask yourself, can you name anyone in and be left with only one survivor, The change, enables us to choosethe kind of sci any branch of research today who's equiv Truth. That's the ideal. But even scientists ence we want. If we are allowed to. • alent to the Einsteins and Newtons of are reluctant to forsake their favourite yesteryear? The scientific heroes of our theories, however battered they become in As Producer of the ABC Radio ScienceShow, Robyn age are more likely to be the communi the critical onslaught. Williams has the opportunity lo interview many in cators like David Attenborough or David Consider Sir Fred Hoyle. His place in the teresting people i11 science. 198 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 799 E M E N T ''A concept of eco-tourism must be developed bywhich visitors can be both entertained and educated and yet leave the area with more or less the same wilderness value it had when they entered it. " THE DAINTREE DILEMMA BY SUE McINTYRE, BERT JENKINS & ROSEMARY LOTT DEPARTMENT OF ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT, UNIVERSITYOF NEW ENGLAND ERE THE RAINFOREST MEETS THE sea. Vast Calophyllum trees writhe out from the forest's edge often restingH with huge woody 'elbows' on the beach itself. Taeniophyllum orchids, visible only as a tapeworm-like green root embed ded within the tree's bark, join the epiphytic fems and vines so characteristic of Australia's tropical rainforests. Looking up from the beach edge, layer upon layer of green, each subtly different from the next, rise to the canopy and beyond until they are lost in haze on the ridgeline of the coastal The Oaintree: where the rainforestmeets the sea. 202 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY mountains. This green continuum is the pool, tastefully surrounded by palms and besieged by questions about 'the forest'. backdrop for animal activity. The butter ferns. The dance floor is packed. It's actu Now bear in mind that this forest starts at flies-Birdwings, Ulysses', Leafwings, Or ally hard to catch an Australian voice most 200 metres from the door of the ange Lacewings-drift across the green here we met Germans, Swiss, Danes, Am Jungle Lodge. The questions repeat them curtain as brilliantly coloured specks. Met ericans, Irish, Brits and so on-almost all selves: 'How can we see the forest?', 'What allic Starlings squabble over the flowers of under 30 and all part of the immense tourist is so special about its ecology?', 'What are ari Umbrella Tree and the Orange-footed influx that the Daintree region has seen the local issues surrounding the World Scrubfowl shouts 'doctorr' as if all around since its very special qualities were recog Heritage listing?', 'What are you up to in were stone deaf. The mammals are more nised and 'rainforest' became, quite rightly, your research program?', and so on. Not secretive: an evening glimpse of the North an impassioned catchcry for the young of trivial questions and ones that deserve ern Brown Bandicoot as it slips across the the developed world. These people did not answers-and yet, but for our presence, go dirt road, mosaic-tailed rats using the camp come here to rage, although they do it well; as a storage place for palm seeds, and they could as easily have stayed in Cairnsto Mosaic-tailed rats are among the commonest strange tube-nosed bats appearing as beige do that. They came because the rainforest consumers of rainforest seeds.The Fawn-footed ghosts in the twilight. is here. And yet, whenever our expedition Melomys (Melomys cervinipes) is one of five These are the forests of the Daintree members came down to the Lodge for a species of Mosaic-tailed rats that live on Cape and we were there as part of a wet-season little 'rest and recreation', we were York. expedition from the University of New England. Our team of six carried out two major research projects during our five weeks in the field. The botanists studied the survival and fate of palm fruits and the entomologists studied the intricacies of the animal community living in aquatic con tainer habitats. We had come to this region for a number of reasons in addition to the pursuit of new scientific information. In particular, we wished to see for ourselves the World Heritage area declared in De cember 1988 and so hotly contested by the Queensland Government. As ecologists we wished to assess the present impacts and likely future developments in the region. In particular we wished to know how these changes will affect the ecological integrity of the rainforest ecosystem. It is what we observed on this front that prompts the present article. N THE BAR OF THE JUNGLE LODGE AT CAPE Tribulation the Eurhythmics belt out of theI loudspeakers. The open-work timber of the bar overlooks the Lodge's swimming Susan McIntyre and Rosemary Lott measure one of the Fawn-footed Melomys (Melomys cervinipes) captured using seeds of the Black Palm (Normanbia normanby,1 as bait. This study of seedpredation was one of the projects carried out during the Daintree expedition. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 203 204 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY largely unanswered (by professionals any but, through the direct and indirect tax way), leaving the energetic visitors no ation processes, also benefits Queensland choice but to rage every night. and the country as a whole. However, with Most of them have heard vague stories out a visionary approach to the manage of stinging trees, fire vines, poisonous ment of tourism, two highly undesirable snakes and, of course, Saltwater Croco things will happen. The tourists themselves diles. Without proper advice many of them willgo away unhappy and the very environ are simply afraid to penetrate the forest ment that attracts them will bedamaged or wall that surrounds the Cape Tribulation even destroyed. settlement. Such management of tourism is not oc This vignette points out perhaps the curring. most important immediate environmental Two things that have happened in the problem facing the region-tourism. This last few years underpin any understanding is one of the most beautiful and special of what's happening. In 1984 the Queens spots on the face of the Earth. The nomi- land Government, against much opposition Stinging trees, together with fire vines, are and informed advice, completed the road among the plants to be wary of in the north north from Cape Tribulation, connecting it Queensland rainforests.Contact with the leaves to the road that already existed and that of this treelead to painful and persistent sting runs from the Bloomfield River to ing. Dendrocnide moroides, the fruit of which is Cooktown. This new section of road shown here, although one of the smaller species, is reputed to have the most severe perches on steep hillsides and cuts through sting. soft lateritic soils. Its role as a degrader of the environment is hard to deny. We noted that after rain the creeks below the road nation of substantial parts as World Heri ran red and the plumes of sediment were tage was not simply a political whimon the clearly visible in the shallow waters off part of the Hawke Government; it is fully shore. The dilapidated remains of the pro worthy of recognition as part of the heri test camp, left in place as a misguided at tage of all the world's people. Indeed as tempt at some sort of monument, were an Australians we should be specially proud additional eyesore, as were the abandoned that it has beenso recognised and very con car bodies and other miscellaneous junk scious of our responsibilities with respectto that littered the roadsides. Other events it henceforth. during our stay highlighted this immediate So, that the area attracts tourists is impact even further: a jeep, abandoned in neither surprising nor undesirable. Not motion after its hiring by a group of over only do such tourists, potentially anyway, seas tourists, rolled over into one of the get to experience a unique and exciting finest creeks in the district. Local wreckers ecosystem, they also leave behind them 'souveniring' the fuel tank emptied its load dollars, pounds, marks and kroner which, in of diesel into the creek to lighten their this age of economic rationalism, is judged task! to beimportant too.This economic input, of But in the present context the primary course, enriches the local tourist operators result of the road's completion has been In 1984, after much opposition, the road north from Cape Tribulation was completed. Now, after rain, creekseast of the road run red with displaced sediment. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M 8 E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 205 that this whole region is now accessible not following a special,arduous journeyto it but as an alternative 'scenic' route from Mossman to Cooktown. Regular bus ser vices run daily and any number of four wheel drive 'wilderness tours' are to be seen hurtling up and down the road. Much larger numbersof peoplenow enter the re gion and they do so at little personalcost either in terms of money or, more import antly, effort. This easy access has led to an easygoing attitude towards the preser vation of environmental values. It has also led to increased demand for services and that inevitable correlate, an escalation of land values. The World Heritage decision itself has played a major part in exacerbating the situation by drawing world attention to the glories of the area. So the combination of much easier ac cess and a sort of internationalguarantee of attractiveness to tourists and their money has led to a surge in land values along the coastal strip (most of which is just outside the boundariesof the World Heritage area). And this, as elsewhere, has attracted that most dangerous of environmental pests, the coastal developer, aided and abettedby willingcouncils. Patches of virgin rainforest have been re-zoned from rural to high- density residential! The recent sale of a the area, the transport of seeds of exotic together so that the values of the region are nine-hectare block in Cape Tribulation for plants, the removal of orchids and ferns retained in perpetuity. But 'later' may be almost two million dollars points out the from trees, of four-wheel drive and motor too late. rampant escalation in land values in re cycle enthusiasts thinking that great empty sponse to the 'Gold Coast' development im stretches of beach are 'unused' and thus 0TH HERE AND ELSEWHERE A CONCEPT perative. Elsewhere in the area the Doug open to them as racetracks, are hardly of eco-tourism must be developed by las Shire Council has approved plans for a mentioned let alone taken seriously. whichB visitors to an area of great natural resort on a patch of land totally surrounded The area has other environmental heritage value can be entertained and edu by the World Heritage area. So extensive problems-the amount of damage being cated and yet leave the area with more or have been the proposals for development done by feral pigs is very conspicuous. A less the same wildernessvalue it had when that public outcry against the Douglas walk along the beach one night was en they entered it. There are models both in Shire Council's Development Control Plan livened by a large boar that used the man Australia and elsewhere for this sort of has led to it being withdrawn for redrafting. grove flats as a regular source of food. He tourism. A proportion of the tourist use in Overall, then, the talk is of one-hectare decided that trailing us was goodentertain the Kakadu National Park, NorthernTerri residential blocks and condominium devel ment (we were less convinced!). Inside the tory, is bothcontrolled and orchestrated by opments, of resorts and swimming pools, forest, enormous areas are ploughed up by informed interpreters aided by the National and the dollar signs light up in the eyes of pigs as they root for the edible, and pigs Parks Service. In North America 'edu the speakers. It is likely that the rainforest may well be displacing the magnificent cational tourism' is bothvery popular and a presence will be reflected only in the fanci cassowaries as they drive off the nesting great money spinner. Those members of ful names that these developments birds and prey upon eggs and chicks. The the public with an interest in the outdoors adopt-'Crocodylus', 'Jungle Lodge' and forest edges are choked with convolvulus and natural history have proved more than the like. The impacts of these or indeed any and grassy clearings by the introduced sen willing to pay to be educated about seg developments have not been thought sitive plant Mimosa pudica. But these bio ments of the natural world while holidaying. through. The impact of siltation on the off logical problems are dwarfed by the human Nowhere is more ready and more suitable shore reef, the nutrient enhancement of ones. to this sort of development than the north forest and reef as a result of primitive The area desperately needs a manage ern rainforests. At the same time the dep sewage arrangements, and the disposal of ment authority that will tackle these and redations of the developers and speculators garbage are just some of the ecosystem other problems in an integrated way. All level problems that will arise. More subtle those concerned, whether paid by federal Even in this moist warm environment, aban impacts of noise on wildlife, of the many or State governments must, sooner or doned car bodies constitute eyesores for many dogs that visitors and residents bring into later, set aside petty differences and work years. along our coasts must be modified to com forests so that they continue to remove car they form a small proportion of the whole. ply with the idea of 'sustainability' -the no bon dioxide from the atmosphere, off Large tracts of mature, undisturbed forest tion that bigger profits and more physical setting, in part, the inputs we put into it by are characterised by structural features of development go hand in hand with in use of fossil and other fuels and chemicals. the trees and other vegetation, and the creased quality of life must be shown to be To have any credibility in the global en habitat mosaic they form for the multitude the nonsense that it is. vironmental debates that have already of animals that live within them. This is So what form might such eco-tourism begun and that will, without doubt, be the what we have in the rainforests of the take? Well, for a start, the whole Daintree key political issues over the next decade Daintree. They are part of the heritage of region is accessible on a day-trip basis from Australia must do the right thing in its own all of us and we should treasure the chance Mossman or Cooktown. It is hard to see forests. The conservation and proper man to see them and have our children and their how any further development of facilities agement of our tropical rainforests are our children see them. for accomodationis justified within the for particular responsibility. They remain an This remains a possibilityright now: but est itself. The impact of such projects dur inseparable part of a global responsibilityto for how long? • ing construction and on-going use is inevi maintain the health of the planet. As an at tably great. A modem, well-funded and mospheric cleansing agency, rainforests well-staffed interpretation centre is des are second to none; as a biological treasure Suggested Reading perately needed as are selected well house, source of future pharmaceuticals developed, signposted walking trails. and genetic stock,they are unparalleled; as Anon., 1986. Tropical Rainforests of North Lastly, central coordination of access would a provider of inspiration and intellectual re Queensland. Their C.onservation Significance. moderate environmental impact by juvenation, they are superb; and on top of Special Australian Heritage Publication Series, No.3. Australian Government Publishing Ser controlling the pressure placed on the en all this they are beautiful in the extreme. vice: Canberra. vironment and facilities during 'peak' All the signs are there in the Daintree, of Russell, R., 1985 Daintree, Wherethe Forest times. On the Australian scene, measures the tarnishing and, ultimately, loss of this Meets the Reef. Australian Conservation Foun such as these may seem draconian yet unique and humbling phenomenon-the dation and Weldon-Hardie: Sydney. every one of them is commonplace in the tropical rainforest. In so far as this impact is Parker, P. & Callahan, S., 1987. Daintree: United States National Park System due to increased tourist use and the uncon Rainforest or Real Estate? Habitat15: 7-10. acknowledged as one of the best in the trolled development that this is producing, world. the forests are being 'loved to death'! So far Dr Sue Mcl11tyre is a research fellow al the U11iver At a time when the greenhouse gases in nothing done is irrevocable but in a matter sity of New E11gla11d. A Melbourne graduate. she is the atmosphere are increasing daily as a re of months it may well be so. It takes a week a pla11/ ecologist with special i11terests i11 seed and sult of rainforest clearing (principally in to clear a patch of mature rainforest; it may weed biology. Mr Berl je11ki11s a11d Ms Rosemary Amazonia), we have a deep-seated re take 700 years for it to recover to the state Lott are PhD st11de11/s in the Oepartme11t of sponsibility to conserve our own tropical it was in at the beginning of the week! Ecosystem Ma11agemmt at UNE. Both are gradu Propaganda photographs showing trees ates of Griffith U11iticrsity, Brisbane. Bert is study i11g the factors determi11i11g foodweb complexity i11 Feral pigs (Sus scrofa) are an exotic intrusion and dense vegetation on land recently aquatic co11tai11er habitats a11d Rosemary the into the northern rainforests. They plough up logged must not be taken as evidence that dy11amics a11d regmeratio11 of rai11forest rem11a11ls large areas of ground interfering with normal the rainforest regenerates and restores it i11 11orlhen1 New South Wales. She is particularly germination and plant replacement processes, self quickly. A few such highly disturbed i11terested i11 the ecology of seeds a11d fniits of and may also prey upon the eggs and chicks of rai11forest trees. ground nesting birds such as Scrub Fowt and areas are a natural feature of any forest but cassowaries. they are ecologically tolerable only when A superb film of Australia's Lyrebird featuring footage never filmed before, including the incredible mating ceremony and many beautiful songbirds in the temperate rainforests. "A fascinating and informative documentary" Dame Phyllis Frost, D.B.E., National Chairman of the Keep Australia Beautiful Council. Each film is edited for the world television market - to entertain the general public while at the same time being scientifically accurate. They point out in a subtle way the urgent necessity to protect our fragile _environment. In these films you will see undisturbed wildlife and hear the beautiful symphony of bird songs and calls. A perfect gift for any nature lover, as well as being a superb Australian gift for overseas. BIRD SAFARI IN AUSTRALIA Features our beautiful birdlife filmed mostly in the Mallee country of southern Australia. It shows how birds, plants and insects live together in their natural environment. You will be able to enjoy and study bird life in the wild close-up, as never filmed before. "An enchanting and beautiful film showing the richness of bird life of Australia and the importance of preserving the natural habitat." Dame Elisabeth Murdoch A.C. Videos are available from: Laszlo Erdos Nature Films, 5 Sydney St., East Prahran 3181 Victoria Australia Tel: (03) 515-736 When ordering please specify which video you require "Kingdom of the Lyrebird" &/or "Bird Safari in Australia" and what format: Pal -VHS or Beta $45 ea. or N.T.S.C. for USA or Japan $49 ea. Plus $3 for postage and packaging within Australia. ··-�-- ..-.....-___,___.. - . . - ·- ·-----; - �-. - -- s u I s s T E N C E Indonesians for several centuries, making it lagoon during their voyage to nearby the oldest foreign-based fishery in Aus Cartier Reef and to more southernreefs. tralia. The earliest reported contact with Much publicised recent arrests of traditional Indonesian fishermen comes Indonesian fishermen in Australian waters from the narrative of Matthew Flinders have highlighted the problem of illegal fish who described an encounter with a fleet of ing. The majority of these illegal vessels are about 60 perahus near Cape Wilberforce, at non-traditional, motorised perahus, capable the north-western corner of the Gulf of of making more extended voyages than Carpentaria, in February 1803. The crew sailing craft and operating largely outside on the �rahus, about 1,000 men, were the area reserved for traditional fishing fishing for trepang (edible holothurians of under the Memorandum of Understanding. the phylum Echinodermata). Upon his ar Two apparent reasons for the recent up rival in Coepang (Kupang), Flinders in surge in fishing by Indonesian craft outside quired about the trepang fishermen and the traditional fishing zone are increasing was informed that the natives of Makassar market values for fishing products, particu (Ujung Pandang) had long been accustomed larly Trochus shells and sharks' fins, and a to fishing for trepang amongst islands near serious decline in fisheries stocks in Indo Java and on a dry shoal lying to the south of nesia. 'Rottee' (Roti), presumably Ashmore Reef. In 1986, the Australian National Parks In recognition of this long tradition, the and Wildlife Service, which administers the Australian and Indonesian Governments Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in commissioned a consultancy with the the catch we observed on perahus, and also 197 4, allowing traditional fishing by Northern Territory Museum to undertake with the reported abundance of some of the Indonesians to be continued in the Aus a survey of the marine resources of same species on reefs elsewhere in the tralian Fishing Zone around Ashmore and Ashmore Reef. The main objective of the Indo-Pacific region. We also conducted, Cartier Islands, Scott Reef, Seringapatam study was to assess the impact of traditional through an interpreter, interviews with the Reef and Browse Island. In 1983, Ashmore Indonesian fishing activities upon the crews of 13 perahus to learn about the tra Reef was declared a National Nature Re Nature Reserve. In the course of this work ditional fishing methods employed, the im serve to protect nesting seabirds and we visited Ashmore Reef twice in 1987 and portance of the fishery and patterns of use turtles, although fishing by traditional carried out field surveys in three habitats of the reef over the past 10-15 years. methods was still permitted. In July 1988, (reef flat, lagoon and outer reef slope) to however, the Australian Government determine the distribution and abundance SHMORE REEF LIES ABOUT 180 KJLO unilaterally introduced new regulations, of trepang, Trochus shells, giant clams and A metres south of the Indonesian island banning all fishing activities in the Nature fishes-the main products exploited by of Timor, on the edge of the Sahu! Shelf of Reserve, except for some areas outside the Indonesian fishing vessels. On the basis of north-western Australia. It is a roughly reef crest. Although fishing is now pro these surveys, we attempted to estimate elliptical-shaped reef about 30 kilometres hibited in most areas of Ashmore Reef, the level of exploitation of the reef animals long and encloses a shallow lagoonwith ex Indonesian fishingvessels still shelter in the by comparing results from the surveys with tensive reef and sand flats, covering an area .. .. ••• 0 •,, • . I • Do 0,_ 0 . 0 o• . • "'., """I Po o TimorSea Ashmore Reef 0 Cartier Island 0 Seringapatam Reef 0 • Scott Reef • Browse Island 212 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY Interior of the main cabin of a perahuwhere the crew's possessions are kept and where they sleep. Drinking water and firewood are stored under the floor boards. of 239 square kilometres. Three perma nent islands-East, Middle and West Islets-are important rookeries for many speciesof sea birds and nesting grounds for turtles. The majority of perahus come to Ashmore Reef during the dry season (April-November) primarily because of the favourable sailing winds and suitable weather conditions for drying their catch. From April 1986 to June 1988, 151 perahus visited Ashmore Reef (boarding records supplied by the Department of Arts, Sports, the Environment, Tourism and Territories). Most of these were from Roti. Many visited twice a year, some fished in successive years, and others visited onlybriefly en route to other reefs. Perahus generally begin to arrive at Ashmore Reef in March, their numbers reaching a peak in April, then declining to a minimum in June-July. Numbers again peak in September before declining in October-November. These two peaks con stitute two distinct fishing seasons, the length of each (four to six weeks) being largely determined by the food and water supplies carried on the perahus. Life is generally hard for the crews of the fishing perahus, although most do not con sider their occupation particularly danger ous. Heavy weather is the main hazard to the small perahus and is of greatest con Trepang, mainly Actinopygaspp., drying on the deckof a perahu. cern to crews. Crews of at least two perahus were lost when Cyclone Kay crossed over Scott Reef in 1987 and many reef. Few perahus carry any medicinal male crew of seven whose ages range from fishermen drowned when a· perahu supplies and fishermen who have died at 18 to 25. Living conditions on the perahu foundered near Cartier Island in heavy seas Ashmore Reef are buried in shallow graves are basic and crowded. In the main and only whipped up by Cyclone Orson in April on the reef's islands. cabin, headroomis sufficient only for sitting 1989. As traditional Indonesian fishing The Rasa Sayang and its crew typify and there is barely enough sleeping space vessels do not carry radios, the number of those coming to the reefs offnorth-western for all the crew. Drinking water is stored in perahus lost at sea in Australian waters is Australia. This sailing perahu is made of several 44-gallon drums under the floor of not known. Other hazards these fishermen wood, is 9.5 metres long and has a cargo the main cabin, along with firewood. face are malaria and cholera, illnesses that carrying capacity of ten tonnes. When not Cooking is done on the cramped reardeck are endemic to their home villages, as well in Australian waters, it is used as a cargo over an open fire contained in a steel pan. as exposure caused by diving, and wounds vessel carrying goods between Roti and Staples are rice, sugar and tea, sup acquired while collecting animals on the Sulawesi. The Rasa Sayang carries an all- plemented by reef fish. VOLUME 2 3 NUMBER 3, SUMMER 1 9 8 9-90 213 ..., � ..J ..J The large and valuable trepang, Thelenota ananas, commonly called the 'prickly red fish', on the outer reefslope. The primary catch on the Rasa Sayang was trepang, with smaller amounts of Trochus shells and sharks' fins. Reef fish, giant clam meat, squid and octopus were also taken, but mainly for consumption by the crew or driedfor later use by their fam ilies in Indonesia. Helmet, pearl and baler shells are also collected and used for trading or bartering and occasionally the red alga Graci/aria is taken to bedried and The most valuable species of trepang, used in cooking. Holothuria (Metriatyla) aculeata, is usually found on the reefflat. REPANG ARE CONSIDERED A DELICACY with aphrodisiac properties in certain tween speciesand is dependenton both size Tparts of Asia. The trepang collected at and quality. At Ashmore Reef, the most Ashmore Reef are eventually sold to Chi valuable species was Holothuria nese buyers in Ujung Pandang who in tum (Metriatyla) aculeata, up to 13,000 Rp export the product overseas, mainly to ($A9.30) per kilogram dry weight. The China. most commonly collected species was Nine species of trepang were collected Holothuria (Halodeima) atra. This species and processed at Ashmore Reef. They comprised at least 80 per cent of the Rubbing trepang (Ho/othuria (Metriatyla) were taken while reef walking or diving. trepang caught, although it is worth only acu/eata)with sand to remove the skin. These Diving, using only a pair of homemade about 500 Rp ($A0.36) per kilogram dry specimens had been buried in the sand for 24 wooden goggles, was regularly done to weight. Ten to 15 years ago, only the more hours in order to loosentheir skin. depths of at least ten metres. A weighted valuable species, such as Actinopyga spp., spear with a line was sometimes used to Holothuria (Microthele) nobilis and Thelenota ananas, outer reef slopes. The shell is in demand for collect valuable species from deeper water. were collected. How use in the button industry and in specialised The processing of trepang varies, de ever, the expanding demand for trepang paints. Fishermen eat Trochus meat and pending on the species. In general, trepang and the decline in numbers of the more the dried meat was often seen hanging are gutted, boiled and then air-dried on valuable species has meant that some Bohadschia marmorata, from the perahus' rigging. The price board the perahu but sometimes drying and trepang such as received for Trochus shell can be up to removal of the skin is done on sand cays ex usually not considered to have a market 6,000 Rp ($A4.35) per kilogram. During posed at low tide. After boiling, the skin of value, are now sometimes collected. interviews, most crews said that the abun some species is removed either by vigorous A comparison of the abundance of dance of Trochus at Ashmore Reef had de rubbing with an abrasive material, or by trepang found during field surveys with clined in the last 10-15 years. We found burying the animal in sand for about 24 those on perahus suggests there is indis only two Trochus shells in our study sites, hours, after which time the skin is easily re criminate collecting of lower-priced species Holothuria atra. thus confirming the relative scarcity of this moved. Although individuals of some such as (H.) But this may species. trepang species may weigh up to one not be the case for higher-priced species kilogram, 90 per cent of this is water. One such as Actinopyga spp. and Holothuria kilogram dry weight therefore represents (M.) aculeata, since the proportion of these The most commonly collected species of about ten of these large specimens. On the found on perahus was slightly higher than in trepang, Ho/othuria (Halodeima)atra. Small in perahus we boarded, the maximum dry the field. dividuals of this species are commonly covered (Tectus niloticus) with sand, except for some bare spots along weight of trepang collected during a trip The Trochus shell is each side of the body. This species is found in was about 800 kilograms. the most valuable mollusc collected at many habitats but is particularly numerous on The market value of trepang varies be- Ashmore Reef; it is taken by diving on the the reefflat. 214 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY --' � _j _j V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 215 Sharks were also caught by most perahus but a few concentrated on shark fishing alone. Sharks were caught both in side and outside the reef, using hand-lines with single hooks or long-lines up to 100 metres long with five to seven large hooks. Many of the shark fishermen attracted their catch with shark rattles (goro goro). These consist of a length of bamboo split and spread into a fork at one end. Across this end is a short piece of bamboo onto which several half coconut shells are threaded. The shells create a rattling noise when shaken in the water and the vi brations attract the sharks. Strict ritual is observed when using the gorogoro: a head band is worn and the fishermen must not spit, urinate or otherwise contaminate the water-actions considered to render the gorogoro ineffective. All types and sizes of sharks are taken, but larger sharks and other large cartilagi nous fishes are preferred. Usually only the fins are kept for sale, but some meat is cut into strips, salted and sun-dried. The mar ket value for the fins ranges from 3,000- 20,000 Rp ($A2.17-14.50) per kilogram, with the fins of the Giant Guitarfish or Shovel-nosed Ray (Rhynchobatus djid densis) fetching up to 50,000 Rp ($A36.25) per kilogram. UR SURVEYS AT ASHMORE REEF AND 0 discussions with fishermen show that pressure on the marine resources of the reef have increased over the last 10-15 years and that exploitation of Trochus and some species of trepang, clam and possibly sharks are reaching high levels. For other groups such as fishes, however, exploi tation in relation to potential yield sWl ap pears to be low. Similar levels of exploi tation probably apply to other Australian reefs within the traditional fishing zone, and it is clear that some conservation measures are called for. Management options are either a total ban on all Indonesian fishing activities in Australian waters, or a continuation of tra ditional fishing but under carefully man aged conditions in the area covered under The Shovel-nosed Ray or Giant Guitarfish is Suggested Reading the Memorandum of Understanding. To hunted by Indonesian fishermen at Ashmore impose a total ban on all Indonesian fishing Reef. Flinders, M., 1814. A Voyage to Terra activities would deprive traditional Australis. Vol. 2. London. fishermen of their livelihood, and cause There is a need also to restrict exploitation Russell, B.C. & Vail, LL 1988. Report on hardship and economic disruption to of some species, especially Trochus and the Traditional Indonesian Ashing Activities at Indonesian communities such as on Roti giant clam Tridacna gigas. In future, the Ashmore Reef Nature Reserve. Report to the where conditions already are severely de number of perahus fishing in Australian Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (Project No. 8687/19). pressed. Furthermore, a total ban on fish waters might need to belimited by allowing Serventy, D.L, 1952. Indonesian Rshing Ac ing would be difficult and costly to enforce only perahus from areas such as Roti to tivity in Australian Seas. The Aust. Geog. 6: and would probably lead to increased illegal fish, or by a selective licensing system. A 13-16. fishing. permit system might be one way of ensur Management measures would preserve ing that conditions of fishing in Australian Dr Lyle Vail, Curator of Echinoderms at the NT the existing traditional fishery while ensur waters are clearly spelt out, and that num Museum, is interested in the taxonomy, biologyand ing conservation of resources. One bers of visitingperahus are controlled. ecology of tropical echinoderms, particularly measure, already implemented, has been Whatever measures are adopted, proper crinoids and holothuria11s. Dr BarryRussell, Senior the banning of all non-traditional, motorised and adequate communication with In Curator of Fishes at the NT Museum, is interested in the taxonomy and ecology of tropical demersal fishing vessels within Australian waters. donesian authorities and fishermen is re fishes, especially those of coral reefs. They would es Other management practices might include quired. Unless the control of Indonesian pecially like to thank their interpreter Luciana strictly limiting fishing activities to tra fishing is tackled at its source-at the Nicholls, Andy Barte/ls of the Department of Arts, ditional gathering and processing methods. Indonesian village or port of origin Sports, the E11viro11me11t, Tourism and Tem·tories, Australia will face continuing and escalating and Captain Lazm·e Sexton of the Ocean Reaperfor Indonesian fishermen demonstrating the use of problems of illegal fishing. • their assistance with this study. shark rattles (goro goro). V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 219 z The camaril 111111Hathbellende11lcerensls is �i only known,._"die wet tropics fromTully to ;'.; CooklDWn Ill nordt IUl b Aul1ralla. 1 220 A U S T R A L I A N N A T U R A L H I S T O R Y V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 221 HE HELICARlONlDAE IS A STRANGE FAM· and disadvantages in having a shell. Cer when the animal is active. Australian Tily of snails and semi-slugs. The most tainly it is useful to have an impermeable, rainforests are not always wet and, when obvious members are the terrestrial and mobile shelter to prevent predation and re the air dries out too much, helicarionids re semi-arboreal species of Helicarion, which duce water loss, but such an inflexible at treat to damp hiding places beneath logs are found in wet forests all over the east tachment can sometimes be a liability, cut and under bark until it's safe to come out coast. Helicarion is a portmanteau name, ting down the number of places a snail can again. The skin of the body is thick and describing an animal halfway between a go. A slug can burrow or crawl through tough, but the thin-walled visceral mass is snail (Helix) and a slug (Arian). The body of cracks in rocks and logs-something a snail shielded, first by the shell and then by the a helicarionid is long and slug-like, usually of similar body weight would find imposs mantle lobes. This arrangement obviously ending in a jaunty little up-turned tail. The ible. Water loss is a major concern to soft works for the helicarionids for they are shell is thin and glassy, and sits on the bodied animals but the problem is reduced very common in rainforests all over the animal's back like a howdah. The veins of in rainforests where the humidity and tem east coast. the lung cavity are clearly visible beneath. perature fluctuate very little. Unable to A snail's armour casing isn't always im Most helicarionids are too bulky to with withdraw into the shell, helicarionids resist pregnable. Pittas, ground-dwelling birds of draw into the shell and rely on camouflage desiccation by secreting a thick mucus that subtropical and tropical rainforests, relish to keep them out of danger. If this fails, cloaks the body and cuts down evaporation the larger snails, smashing the shells open they thrash their tails around, trying to on rock anvils. Camouflage does not seem draw the predator's attention from the vul A snail's shell or camouflageis not always fool to help these snails, judging by the number nerable visceral mass. In Helicarion the proof. Some snails rely on defensive 'frothing' of cryptically coloured shards of shell normal role of the shell is reversed, with to ward off predators. around the feeding sites. Rats and carnivor lobes of tissue from the mantle protecting it ous marsupials take a share, biting through from mechanical damage and keeping it the apex to get at the softest tissue be moist. The mantle lobes are cryptically neath. Even glow-worms get in on the act, coloured in earth tones and bear a sculpture the larvae of some species feeding exclus of ridges and papillae. They completely ively on small snails. So, although a shell cover the shell at rest. Only when the ani can be useful (think how many shelled mal is moving is the shell's highly reflective forms there are), it's not entirely foolproof surface visible. and can be dispensed with in favourable Why are the helicarionids heading for a habitats. The helicarionids are doing all shell-less existence? There are advantages right. There are several groups of snails within The shell of Helicarionspecies is thin and glassy. the Helicarionidae. The Helicarion com When at rest, lobes of mantle tissue protect the plex is probably the most familiar. Anyone shell from mechanical damage and drying out. who has ever wandered along the Palm Walk at Eungella National Park in central Queensland, has undoubtedly sent one or two huge Helicarion superbus to an early grave. During the wet season it is difficult to walk anywhere without treading on mating pairs. This semi-slug is the largest in Australia, surpassed only by an undescribed grey and black species from far northern Queensland. Two other forms exist in Australia: Parmacochlea and its allies, in which the shell is reduced to a flat plate, and the Nitor group, in which the shell is conventionally coiled and exquisitely fme and crystalline. Helicarionids may be found on the ground, on tree trunks, or on the undersides of leaves. The subtle colouration makes them hard to pick out at first but once the snail hunter has the search image established they can be found everywhere! HE CAMAENIDAE IS BY FAR THE LARGEST family of snails in Australia. Its mem Tbers are found throughout the mainland in all habitats from desert to rainforest. Par ticularly numerous in the north, the num ber of species decreases as you travel south, so only one species, Austrochloritis victoriae, is found in southern Victoria and none occurs in Tasmania. Rainforest forms are often quite large and handsomely patterned, making them popular with shell collectors. Snails belong ing to the Sphaerospira complex, for ex ample, are well represented in bothprivate and museum collections, but confusion over the names still exists. The camaenids are notorious for their variability in shell shape and colour. Within one population there 222 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY may be blond, dark or banded forms with rounded or keeled shells. Early workers, provided with small samples and in complete locality data, gave each form a dif ferent specific or, at the very least, subspecific name. Consequently, just about every island in the Whitsunday Group was thought to have an endemic species of large camaenid. In his 1937 revision of the Aus tralian land snails, Tom Iredale listed over 60 names that he considered valid for the Sphaerospira complex. The true number is probably closer to 15. Australian rainforest camaenids tend to have large ranges, which can be loosely div ided into southern,central and northern re gions. Each area has its own species, but the richest is in mid-eastern Queensland where there are at least seven species of Sphaerospira, mostly confined to rainforest. The montane forests of Eungella are in habited by the large snail, Sphaerospira informis. At 60 millimetres in height and diameter, this impressive species is com monly encountered on night walks along Sphaerospira infonnis is a large camaenid snail (maximum six centimetres in height and width). In the park tracks. Individuals from higher dividuals from higher, wetter altirudes grow bigger than their lowland counterparts, perhaps be altitudes are much larger than those from cause there is no needto aestivateand stop feeding. the lowlands. The extended rainy season on mountain ranges may account for this, Lindeman and Cumberland Groups. No re specimens are available for study the true allowing snails to continue feeding, and thus liable records existfor the mainland, which identity of this snail remains an enigma. growing, while those on the dry coastal is surprising as the closest occurrence is Further to the north, the large stretch of plains are forced into aestivation. only a few kilometres from the coast. The rainforest from Townsville to Cooktown is Almost all other species found in mid shell is also remarkably consistent: pale yel home to another group of northern eastern Queensland occur either only on low with a dark lip and dark peripheral camaenids, the Hadra group, which is the mainland or on both mainland and band. Sphaerospira macleayi is one of the closely related to the more southerly islands. Two species have island-only distri few camaenids that can be soundly ident Sphaerospira complex. The largest snail in butions. Sphaerospira macleayi is confined ified from shell alone. northernrainforests, Hadra bipartita, may to the wet gullies on the Whitsunday, The other island species is of doubtful often be encountered in parks and gardens, status. Sphaerospira whartoni is a large where it can be abit of a shock to southern Hadra bipartita is a generalist. It prefers wetter stripedsnail recorded only from Holboume emigres. This snail grows to 70 millimetres areas but will alsomove into lessstable environ Island, offBowen. It bears a strong resem across, which is enormous when compared ments. Reaching a height and width of seven blance to Sphaerospira saxicola, which is with the more familiar introduced garden centimetres, it is Australia's largest northern snail. widespread in the area, but as no whole snail Helix qspersa, a midget at 30 milli- V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 223 metres. Hadra bipartita is easily recog Two related species are found in the large (up to ten millimetres-big for a land nised by its striking colouration-a hand north-east: Hadra bellendenkerensis, which prosobranch) and are often collected in mis some two-tone, chestnut brown to tawny is confined to the wet tropics from Tully to take for insect pupae, from which their above, and black below, sharply divided at Cooktown, and Hadra barneyi, a dry-forest Latin name is derived. the periphery. In adult specimensthe lip is species from Cape York Penisula. The pupinids, like most other white and of the nature of porcelain.Wholly The northern rainforests are also inhabi prosobranchs, possess an operculum-a yellow individuals have been recorded from ted by animals with New Guinea affinities. flat plate that sits on the upper surface of many localities. The shell shape may vary Among the more bizarre snails is the animal's tail and seals the aperture of from rounded to sharply keeled. The keeled Rhynchotrochus macgillivrayi, which is the the shell when the soft parts are with forms are flattened, sometimes almost dis single Australian member of a large New drawn. The operculum preventspredators coid, and are particularly common on the Guinea genus. This snail, like many of the getting in and water getting out. It also cuts Atherton Tablelands. northern camaenids, is arboreal, adapted to down gaseous exchange, so the animal Hadra bipartita is a generalist, as far as life high up in the rainforest canopy. The must find a way of letting air through or it rainforest snails go. It prefers the wetter Australian tree snails are poorly known be will suffocate. Pupinids have solved this areas but will move into less stable environ cause the canopy is a difficult place in which problem by extending part of the shell lip ments, such as monsoon forest, where it to collect. They are accessible by helicop into two siphons, one either side of the ap appears to be quite successful. It occurs ter, hoist or ladder but then only to the very erture. The configuration of these siphons over a huge expanse of eastern Queens brave. Examination of trees newly felled by is usually enough to identify the species. land, from Cardwell to the tip of Cape York natural or human agency is the most profit Although there are a lot of semi-slugs, the Torres Strait Islands and New Guinea. able way to find specimens. Luck seems to true slugs are not numerous in the northern Many names have beengiven to the various play a disproportionate part. The total rainforests. Only two families are present, island forms but they are all thought to be number of tree snail species in Australia is one poorly known with a few small and long to the single species. unknown. A new species was recently dis cryptic species, the other represented covered at Mt Lewis, near Mossman, by by only one well-known species, Tribonio Rhynchotrochus macgillivrayi, the single Aus Phonts graeffi. tralian member of a large New Guinea genus, Keith McDonald of the Queensland This is a large and colourful lives high up in the rainforest canopy. Examin National Parks and Wildlife Service while slug with a discontinuous distribution along ing them in their natural habitat can bean ardu he was collecting frogs in forest streams. the eastern coast from Cape York Penin ous task. The snail had fallen out of a tree and into a sula to Royal National Park, south of Syd creek. (Where else would you look for an ney. Individuals from the top of Mt arboreal snail?) Bellenden Ker, near Innisfail, are crimson and hard to ignore. Why should a soft HE HELICARIONIDAE AND THE CAM bodied animal make itself so obvious to T aenidae are the most obvious members predators? No research has been under of the rainforest snail fauna but many other taken on the palatability of Triboniophorus groups are represented. There are more but it has been suggested that the red terrestrial prosobranchs (primitive gilled colour may be a warning and anything try snails) in these forests than anywhere else ing to make a meal of the slug might be in in Australia. Most are small and difficult to for a nasty surprise. Another red form spot but species of the Pupinidae are quite (scarlet) occurs on Mt Kaputar in northern New South Wales. Other populations of Triboniophorvs graeffi is one of the few known Triboniophorus are cryptically coloured true slugs to occurin northern rainforests.TIiey yellow, olive green or grey and are almost are normally cryptically coloured but popu impossible to see. lations of scarlet forms alsooccur. Perhapsthis colour acts as a warning to its unpalatability, There are hundreds of species of land however no research into this has been under snails in our rainforests. Although this taken. article will give you an idea of the range, nothing beats getting out there with a hand lens and an indomitable will. You will need the former to examine the smallest species and get a close-up on the larger ones. The latter you will need to keep you going through the rain, ants and leeches. No won der the rainforests are Australia's last un known wilderness.• Suggested Reading Burch, J.B., 1976. Snails Without Shells. Aust. Nat. Hist. 18(9): 310-315. Oyne, D., 1988. Wildlife of Australia. Reed Books: NSW. Iredale, T., 1937. A Basic List of the Land Mollusca of Australia. I & II. Aust. Zoo/. 8(4): 287-333; 9(1 ): 1-39. Also Ill (1938), 9(2): 83-124. Parkinson, B. et al., 1987. Tropical Landshells of the World. Verlag Christa Hemmen: WestGermany. Ms Bronwen Scott is a technical officer at the Queensland Museum's North Queensland Branch a11d a post-graduate student at fames Cook Univer sity, Townsville, whe re she is studying the systematicsand biogeographyof the camaenid land snails of eastern Queensland. 224 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY Y>ucan learn a lot about the history of MacquarieStreet just by looking at thepavement. Macquarie Street's Sydney Hospital hasn't Further down the street you'll find the site In an effort to pay tribute to this, Caltex, always enjoyed such an established and con- where the Female School of Industry once stood. in association with the NSW Public Works In 1826, before anybody had even heard of Department, has laid twenty 'Feminism,' the colony ran short of servants. commemorative footpath site was occupied by Accordingly, the ladies of the colony set plaques along Macquarie a hospital which was up the Female School of Industry in ordet to Street, each marking a his- teach their lesser sisters "every branch of liquor of the day, namely, Rum. household work." The site is more appropriately So ii you want to find out what Sydney was In 1810, three Sydney businessmen built occupied now by the Mitchell Library. really like in the early days, look out for the the city a magnificent hospital in exchange for Thefact is, Macquarie Caltex Commemorative Plaques on your next �;..:::� the coveted monopoly over the city's Rum trade. [� �£',€�� � Street is more than just � ,,1:n11A.- Cahex 011 (Aumaha) P1y L1m11t-d THE COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUES SPONSORED BY (lncorporii1�d 1n r--:S\\') C&'MCCJ\0012 ways, as well as other farm improvements, T IS WIDELY ACCEPTED THAT THE MOST erosion can be minimised by adjusting urgent and difficult environmental threat stocking levelsso that ground cover is not by undercutting or burying them; and they facingI Australia is not the greenhouse ef overstressed, or by installing more remove the fertile topsoil layers, depositing fect nor the destruction of the ozone watering points so that stock are more them as sediment in creeks, rivers and layer-it is land degradation. Australia's evenly distributed. other water supplies. soils are fragile and shallow. Without a pro Gullies are possibly the most dramatic Where gully erosion is only minor, soil tective covering more problems than could reminder of the way our land has beenmis conservation earthworks can be con ever have been imagined are beginning to used. Those deep channels that cut their structed to treat the problem. These are surface. This i$ particularly true for New way through otherwise productive land af successful when used in conjunction with South Wales, where a recent Statewide fect to some extent almost 25 per cent of the crop, pasture and soil management survey on the extent of land degradation by the State. Gullies form along areas of con practices appropriate for the land. How the Soil Conservation Service of ew South centrated surface water flow. Like sheet ever, if the gullying is severe, there is no Wales (SCSNSW) revealed some frighten and rill erosion, the effects of gully erosion alternative but to change the land use to ing and startling figures. are far-reaching: they carve up areas of one of a lesser intensity. For example, if Land degradation is a decline in the qual farming land, making associatedproduction lands are currently used for cropping, they ity or condition of the land. It arises as a costs higher; they destroy roads and rail- might be converted to grazing. If particu- consequence of misuse of that land-and this can be as simple as planting the wrong crops. Land degradation affects us all, both WOODY WEEDS in terms of consequence and solution. The Plants are not always desirablefor soils. densities of these native plants have not people of New South Wales are paying the Plants such as woodyweeds are regarded just resultedfrom normal regenerationbut costs of land degradation through de- as the single greatestmenace threatening also because a changed environment creased production yield and increased pro- the pastoral lands of western New South works in their favour. duction costs. However, horror stories of Wales. These inedible native plants are Once established, woody weeds devastated land aren't important now. rapidly invading large areas of the semi- severelyrestrictthe growth of surroundlng What matters is halting the problem and, arid and aridregions of the State. Only 33 pastures due to competition for moisture more importantly,doing what is necessary per cent of the Western Division remains and light. Beneath densestands of mature free from infestation. Their distribution plants, ground cover is virtually absent. to avoid future problems. The xposed Erosion is the best known and most vis- and density are increasing due to favour- bare ground is e to wind and able environmental conditions and a lower- water, and sheet, rill, gully and wind ible form of land degradation. Most people, incidence of fire. Unfortunately, woody erosion result Thereduced feed available whether urban or country dwellers, will weeds flourish under the same environ- on susceptible land forces livestock and have at some time seen the sinister beauty mental conditions as more useful trees and native animals onto unaffected areas, of a gully, deeply etched into the land, or shrubs. where they graze heavily. Consequently, the choking intensity of a severe dust Few of the native trees and shrubs that these areas become more susceptible to storm. Soil erosion takes many forms, the grow in the WesternDivision have become degradationand woodyweed invasion. To most common being sheet, rill and gully a problem. Those that do include Turpen- the grazier, the effects don't stop there. tine (Eremophila sturti1). Budda (E. High densities of woody weeds make erosion by water,and wind erosion in drier efficient. areas. What they all have in common is mitcheli,). Broadleaf and Narrowleaf stock ustering longer and less Hopbush (Dodonaea viscosa var. They alsom lead toovergr�""ng� ' less drought their basic cause-removal of the binding arborescens and D. attenuata), Punty resistance for the property' greater losses vegetative plant cover. Bush ( Cassiaeremophila var. eremophi/a) during periods of flystrike, lower lambing Sheet and rill eros·1on both start when and Silver Cassia ( C. artemisioides). High rates and lower land values. Economically, water flows across bare, unprotected coun- they are a disaster for the landholder. try. Rain loosens the surface soil particles Controlling the spread of woody weeds and then runoff washes them away. In the is not easy. Developing a method of � case of sheet erosion a fairly uniform layer logical control is unlikely since they are of topsoil is lost from the land surface. By native species and have no known signifi- cant diseases or predators. The most ef- contrast,rill erosion occurs when the soil ficient and economical time to control loss results in the formation of many woody weeds is before they form dense smaller channels,similar to tiny gullies. Rill mature stands. This way, pastures are erosion often occurs in recently cultivated maintained, management difficulties are or disturbed lands. Both of these types of avoided and the bare ground that leads to erosion cause problems because it is the soil erosion never eventuates. When fertile topsoil that is lost. To compound the young, plants can be controlled by pre- problem this same topsoil silts up streams scribed burning. Thisis also a useful treat- ment for scattered shrubs. If treatment is and water storages. What little fertile soil very selective, chemical control by point we have is literally going down the gurgler. application can be a ppropriate. Meehan- The most important thing to do in areas ical control, including pushing, chaining affected by sheet and rill erosion (which ac- and root ploughing or using 'land count for just over ten percent of the State) imprinting' rollers (which restrictwind and is to stabilise the soil. This is best done by water erosion), can control more densely establishing and maintaining a goodground infested areas. Cropping is another cover of grasses, shrubs and leaf litter. If alternative but is limit to areas of re- cultivated lands are affected, reducing the liable rainfall. ed A combination of treatments is often speed of surface runoff or diverting it to a the bestsolution. It is also usually necess- safe disposal area by building soil conser- ary to have several follow�up treatments vation structural works, such as contour to completely rid an area of woodyweeds. b an k s, will reduce soil loss. Changes in Some of these controls can bequite costly, management practices are also necessary. butthe cost is small compared to the cost For example,using reduced or no-till sys- of not removing them. By controlling terns, which involve minimum tillage and woodyweeds now, future costs and losses stubble retention after crop harvest, will Bare ground at the baseof dumps of woody of production will be much lower over ! ensure that there is always a protective shrubs Is an erosionhazard. many years and land values will be main- g gr und cover. n graz ng lands,this type of ta ned and p ov . _o______o_ _ _ ._ i_·______·______m ed _ i- -- - i- _ r______J � 228 AUSTRALIAN AT URAL HISTORY larly severe, they should be rested com Darling Basin alone. Over 18 per cent of particularly when cultivated soils are pletely and allowed to revert to native for the State is moderately to severely affected grazed in wet weather. Ultimately, conven est. Unfortunately, six per cent of the State by soil structure decline, most of it on lands tional tillage can result in reduced crop suffers from severe to extreme gully used for cropping. This is only too yields; the very opposite of the desired out erosion. understandable when the causes of soil come! structure decline are known. Land management practices hold the ULLIES. SHEET EROSION AND RILLS ARE A stable soil structure is the basis of key to arresting the degradation problem. G all problems with well-researched good, healthy soil. When the arrangement The quickest and most efficient way to re answers. But there is a new generation of of soil particles and the air between them is verse soil structure decline is to establish a threats to the soil emerging from our tree stable, an optimal amount of water can infil good pasture of fibrous-rootedgrasses. On felling past: salinity, acidity, soil structure trate, roots can grow unhindered and well cropping land, conservation farming tech decline-even the names sound complex. aerated, and plant growth is vigorous. Well niques can mean the difference between And so are the problems. Many of these structured soils are also more resistant to pasture that is goodfor only a few years and new problems take up to half a century to erosion. that which is sustainable. It is essential to emerge. Hopefully they won't take that Cropping practices are responsible for incorporate pasture leys, when only grass long to subdue. many unwanted changes in soil structure. is grown, for a sufficient length within crop Latest research suggests that soil struc Heavy machinery used in tillage can de ping rotations. In addition, practices that in ture decline costs more than any other stroy soil aggregates and compact the soil, volve machine-sowing seeds directly into form of land degradation; an estimated forming a dense layer known as a plough the soil (direct-drilling) with little or no $144 million per year in the Murray- pan at the base of the cultivation layer. tillage reduce the chance of compaction. If Land practices incorporating tillage reduce these methods are used, grazing, burning Sheet, rill and gully erosion on the eroding lu the amount of organic matter that can con or herbicides are advisable to minimise nette at 'Walls of China', Willandra Lakes tribute to soil fertility. Stock trampling can competition with weeds. Green manure National Park. also contribute to soil structural decline crops, such as lupins or peas, can also be used to increase the organic matter content of some soils. In the search for ways to improve on poor soil productivity, fertilisers were widely applied. Ironically the nitrogen and superphosphate fertilisers that are used to 'boost' the production of New SouthWales' relatively infertile soils are now proving yet another burden, being a major cause of in duced soil acidity. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria convert nitrogen in the form of ammonium salts to nitrates and nitrites-forms that plants can use. Significant acid levels may be generated in the process with negative effects in the longer term. And even more complex chemical reactions lead to the acidification of soils subject to superphosphate application. Other land Poor land practices can result in topsoil being blown away in dust storms such as this one near Bourke. AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY Before and after: a gully is treated by levelling pastures. Ironically, it is the horticultural dation, prevention is better (and cheaper) and using straw mulch to encourage plant crops of citrus, vine and stone fruits, which than cure. growth. the scheme was de�igned to promote, that Away from the irrigated areas of south are the worst affected. eastern New South Wales, dryland salinity uses that introduce excess amounts of lf the watertable in these areas is not wreaks its own insidious form of havoc. nitrogen into the soil, such as nitrogen lowered, New South Wales may find that its Who of the pioneer settlers would have fixing legume pastures (clovers), also con 'garden' will become barren. Unfor thought that beneath the gently sloping tribute to soil acidity. tunately, it is far easier to prevent irri hills they cleared for pasture lay millions of Once present, induced soil acidity can af gation salinity than to treat it. Prevention tonnes of salt? The shallow-rooted grasses fect the soil's delicate chemistry. Available can be achieved by choosing the right soils and crops that replaced the deeper-rooted aluminium and manganese may reach toxic and carefully planning the irrigation pro dry sclerophyll forest move far less water levels if increasing acidity liberates these gram so that only enough water for the though transpiration. As with irrigation sal elements from normally insoluble com needs of the crop is applied. Timing of inity, the excess rainfall intake causes the pounds. Induced soil acidity leads to re water application should be based on soil water levels to rise. Where the watertable duced pasture growth and crop production. moisture levels. For areas of flood irri intersects the land surface, often at the As with so many environmental imbal gation, the slope needed for optimum water footslopesand drainage depressions, saline ances, the effects don't just end there. The flow is very small. Laser levelling can be water seeps out-hence the name saline resulting decreased ground cover in used to obtain the exact slope, thus reduc seepages. Water evaporates from these creases the susceptibility of the soil to ing water wastage. For areas already affec erosion. ted, mechanical systems such as deep Like many other land degradation prob drainage can be used to lower the water Conservation farming: no tillage. Here a wheat lems, changes to land management prac table. But as with all types of land degra- crop is growing from stubble. tices are needed to reclaim acidic soils. These can include liming, altering fallowing practices and using deep-rooted perennial species. Fertiliser use can continue if it is ammonia-based, while in the legume dominant pastures, grass levels should be increased. ln the short term, acid-tolerant plant species can be used to stabilise the soil while it is being managed back to health. Salinity is one of the recently identified land degradation problems that has at tracted the most attention. Many hectares of Australia's food bowl, the Murray Darling Basin, are threatened by this insidi ous form of erosion. The schemes to irrigate south-western New South Wales by controlling vast amounts of water from the Murray and the Murrumbidgee Rivers have had some un foreseen and unwanted consequences in some areas. Where the ne�ly irrigated areas have been located above ancient salt beds, irrigation salinity has resulted. Too often, this is intensified where poor man agement practices mean that more water than a crop could possibly use is applied. The excess water filters through to the watertable. As more water accumulates in the soil, the table rises, bringing with it the ancient salts. Eventually the salt accumu lates at the surface, stifling trees, crops and V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 231 Irrigation salinity: the saline watertable has risen above the surface in a local depression. areas, leaving salt crystals. Nonnal veg etation is unable to grow and only the most salt-tolerant species survive. Stock often congregate on the bare areas to lick the salt and their trampling leads to further erosion. Dryland salinity is one of the most diffi cult problems to treat. This is not because the solutions aren't known. Rather it is be cause most of the problems are remote, in both time and distance, from the source. Often this means that land owned by many different people is affected. And where the creek and river water becomes saline, thousands of people can be affected. But the problems are often not apparent at the source. Nonetheless, there are many things that can be done to ease the problem of dryland salinity. Treatments must involve both the point of water entry (the 'groundwater re- Drawing up a farm plan is a necessity for every landholder. A l1ealthy fret"""" uses grou11du'lller resen,es and through ""'potm11spm,t1011 kttps the 1mtertable at a safe depth A ,�ood vegetatn,e cm,er Dl!l.·reased vtgetatn,e together wttl, mm;,nal cover predisposes the rwwff e11sures surface grou11d surface to stability A rismx u,atertable briugs uatuml salts tou'llnis //rt su rfnce, Land degmded by killmg the ex1stmx saline seepage and i The lower slopes of tiegetalit-e cmier affected by a hii(h tX a wv,/1 timbered A low watertablt walerlablt Sf'lH!r,ly Surface streams become 5 catchn1e11t permit a does not brmg limits produc/1toe saline through rw,off F= mnge of produdn,e salts lo tire agrlcultuml adWtty from salme seepages � agricu/tuml land surface and mttrcept,on of uses tire waltrtable !--' THE WATER CYCLE AND DRYLAND SALINITY � � § '------' 232 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY charge zone') and the point of water exit optimal farm layout and necessary im swallowed by the sands of time. We know (the 'groundwater discharge zone'). Most provements is a start. Even if only some of how to contain land degradation. All that is importantly trees must be re-established the features are incorporated immediately, now required is for us to act responsibly. • on the groundwater recharge zone. Ideally, it can form the basis for future works. Plant a dense stand of deep-rooted trees should trees. Trees are one of the most necessary Suggested Reading be established, to increase evapotrans and useful features of any property. They piration and ultimately lower the can act as windbreaks, shelter for livestock, Australian Soil Conservation Council, 1989. watertable. A good growth of deep-rooted and eventually serve as food or timber for National Soil Conservation Strategy. ASCC, gum trees can lower the watertable within furniture. All these actions can accumulate. AGPS: Canberra. as little as four or five years-a short time And remember that expenditure on ap Soil ConservationService of NSW, 1988. Soil Conservation. when compared to a possible 50 or 60 years proved soil conservation work is a cost that SCSNSW: Sydney. for the problem to emerge! Soil Conservation Service of NSW, 1989. is tax deductible for a primary producer. land Degradation Survey, NSW 1987-88. At the point of saline water discharge, a The soils of Australia took many thou SCSNSW: Sydney. number of things can be done to improve sands of years to form. We have managed the situation and to minimise further dam to damage 80 per cent of these soils in just Ms Maura Boland B.Sc. is Assistant PublicityOffi age. Revegetation with salt-tolerant under 200 years. Soils are not renewable. cer al the Soil Conservation Service of NSW, Head grasses, herbs, shrubs and trees can stabil Failure to protect them could see us suffer Office. Always co11cenzed about the environment, ise the soil and stop the salt-laden particles the same fate as Egypt and Babylon, she is now a co11vertlo the cmcia/ importance of soil washing into streams and other surface conservatio11for Australia's future. water systems. This can be helped by rip ping the site and applying surface mulch to FARM TREES encourage germination. Keeping stock out It is almost impossible to overestimate no general rules for the best location to of the area means the land doesn't have the the importance of trees in treating land plant trees. This should be worked out on added strain of hoofs to cope with. Soilcon degradation. No other treatment can be the basis of the specific property, since it is servation earthworks can be constructed to used as an antidote to so many problems. dependent on land capability, soil type, divert runoff and deep drainage systems Excessively steep slopes can be protected, rainfall distribution and frost severity as can be installed. And, more significantly, degraded or eroded areas reclaimed and well as other dimatic factors. It also de problems with salinity alleviated with tree land management practices must adapt so pends on the purpose for which the trees retention, regeneration or the planting of are intended.When treesare beingused to the land is not abused-albeit often in ig new trees. stabilise and treat problem areas, special norance. Theadvantage of using trees as a treat attention should be paid to species selec Perhaps more than any other form of ment for land degradation is that they also tion, soil preparation and care of trees. land degradation, dryland salinity requires serve so many other purposes. Rows of Such sitesare often particularlyfragile and a total community response. Many have trees planted as windbreaks can reduce treesmay need special attention for satis claimed that it isn't 'fair' to ask landholders cold stress in livestock, by minimising the factory growth. to bear the cost of fixing problems that are heat-stripping effects of cold, strong As an alternativeto tree-planting, fenc often not of their making, but that have winds. Clumpsof trees canprovide shade ing and stock management can be con- been developing for many years. This is particularly true for salinity, where those who hold land at the point of cause don't see a problem. However, it also isn't 'fair' to ask the Government only to bear the costs of saline seepage. Because the problem can affect such a wide area, the best solution seems to involve whole communities. One whole community in the Yass River Valley is now doing just that. In a project developed and implemented by the SCSNSW and financially backed by the National Soil Conservation Program (NSCP), the Yass Valley Community are fighting their own battle against salinity. This is the future in the fight against land degradation. The New South Wales State Soils Policy has stated that the New South Windbreaks protect crops from moisture Wales community as well as individual land sidered, encouraging natural regeneration holders have a responsibility for preventing loss due to high winds. to take place. and mitigating land degradation. Recognis The planning stage of any effort to im ing the importance of widescale involve for livestockin hot weather, lesseningheat prove tree numbers is probably the most ment in trying to save the land, the NSCP stress. Windbreaks also protect pastures important stage. Once it has been estab lished why and where trees are needed, it has made financial assistance available to and crops, since they reduce the moisture stress caused by strong winds, an es is then important to prioritise which parts community groups who aim to encourage pecially important consideration for horti of the plan are most important. For ex the control of land degradation, and to pro cultural crops. They can also reduce the ample, it could be urgent to stabilise an mote and demonstrate sustainable land use speed of fire advance to less than ten per area affected by saline seepage, whileless practices. cent of that in open grassland, an advan important to establish a wildlife habitat. It is important for individual landholders tage if used at strategic points. In Once prioritised, planting can then pro to remember that they can and must act. droughts, emergency fodder can be found ceed at a pace appropriate· for financial Treatment can be expensive and some in trees, while they also provide a habitat and other constraints. But at least a small times results aren't seen in the short term. for a diversity of wildlife. And at the same number of trees should be planted every These disincentives are significant to a time as the root system and leaf litter pro year in an effective program. As well as vides soil with a structural stability, they spreading the financial burden, this results farmer who is barely making a profit. But aesthetically improve the landscape. in a diversity of age dasses, an important even a little change in land management Large-scale farm tree-planting is the consideration where few trees already may be enough to make some difference. easiestmethod of soil treatment.There are exist. Having a farm plan drawn up to determine V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 233 "It now seems likely that these BY TIM FLANNERY extinctions are ominous signs of an HEAD OF MAMMALS, AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM environmental collapse that began IRLILPI, AS THE WARLPIRI ABORIGINES 40,000 years ago and is continuing knew the Desert Bandicoot unabated at present. " (Perameles eremiana), is just one of 20K mammal species to have become extinct in Australia since European settlement. Tragically, many of these extinctions have occurred in the last 30 or so years. This string of extinctions ranks among the most WHO catastrophic in the world, accounting for just under a third of all mammal species to have become extinct worldwide in the last 500 years. A decade ago just about everyone was certain about the cause of this extinction event. The standard line KILLED went that the 'primitive' marsupials had given way to the 'superior' placental predators and herbivores, such as the fox and rabbit, that Europeans had introduced to the country. KIRLILPI? Evidence that has been accumulating over the past two decades (and that led to the argument put forward here) shows that 234 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY AN EXAMINATION OF AUSTRALIAN EXTINCTIONS this simplistic assessment was wrong. It foxes and cats should surely have affected Autumn 1986). They have shown that now seems likely that these extinctions are far more than just the medium-sized mammal extinctions occurred in areas ominous signs of an environmental collapse mammals. Indeed, in other parts of the where stock never reached and where fox that began 40,000 years ago and is world cats alone have been responsible for and cat predation was minimal. They also continuing unabated at present. the extinctions of a wide range of demonstrated that Aboriginal firestick But beforeabandoning the old theory it is vertebrates, from wrens to crested farming (a management practice first worth establishingjust why it doesn'tfit the pigeons. Furthermore, it was not just the elucidated in this magazine in 1969 by the facts. Perhaps the most telling evidence 'primitive' marsupials that were affected; eminent archaeologist Dr Rhys Jones, concerns the peculiar specificity of the over half the extinct species were native Australian National University) was an extinction event. Almost all the mammals rodents of the family Muridae. This family important factor in maintaining suitable to have become extinct were of medium of eutherian mammals contains, among the conditions for the medium-sized mammals. size (between 150 grams and five most successful of the world's mammal Before moving to settlements and other kilograms in weight) and inhabited the arid species, the Black Rat (Rattus rattus) and communities in the early days of European and semi-arid wnes. Central Australia still House Mouse (Mus musculus). Also, the colonisation, Aborigines regularly burned supports the most diverse lizard fauna on medium-sized marsupials of Australia's the landscape, and Johnson and others put Earth and, although distributions may have wetter areas have survived with hardly a forward the idea that this maintained an altered, not a single extinction has been single extinction. But the coup de grace to elevated level of plant diversity and confirmed among its many reptiles, birds, the old theory was finally delivered, to my enhanced availability of food and shelter or its large or very small mammals. Yet mind at least, by work carried out by Dr hardly a single medium-sized mammal Ken Johnson and his team at the Alice Anbarra women and children burning species survives there today.The effects of Springs Arid Zone Research Institute (see floodplainsin Arnhem Land during the late dry hard-hoofed stock and the predation of also ANH vol. 21, no. 12: 544-546, season. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9 -90 235 This mihrung (Genyomis newton,) was one of Australia's largest birds. It became extinct dur ing the late Pleistocene. over time. In such conditions the fauna is better able to withstand the effects of drought, predation, competition for resources etc., and large-scale fires are prevented from destroying everything in their path. But even this important breakthrough failed to provide a fully satisfactory explanation. Being trained in palae ontology, I have always wondered how, if firestick farming was so important,did the medium-sized mammals survive before the coming of the Aborigines? An understanding of this, I think, is the key to the whole puzzle. Pre-Aboriginal Australia was a very different place to what it is today. Forty thousand years ago, large numbers of very large birds, reptiles and marsupials roamed the landscape. Australia at that time was like Africa is today,with its complex savanna ecology and abundant large mammals. Because of the numerous large plant-eaters, it seems likely that there was rarely enough vegetation to support constant or vast blazes. We know, however, that these great animals disappeared from Australia. Could the development of Australia's fire-prone ecosystem date from the time of their demise? I am convinced that the first Aborigines were, through � hunting, responsible for these extinctions j and that the extinction event greatly z altered the Australian environment. In central Australia most of the vegetation :;;j had been within reach of the extinct plant < eaters and, once released from the browsing and grazing pressure, the bushes, grass and low trees must have grown enormously, as in a paddockleft unstocked for a number of years. Soon enough vegetation would build up to enable enormous wildfires to ravage the landscape, burning millions of hectares. The medium-sized mammals simply couldn't cope with this. Unlike reptiles they are unable to burrow and fast until the plant growth returns; and unlike the large mammals they cannot bound off to new areas and return in a few months when green pick is available. The small unburned patches that fires always leave behind would have been sufficient to support the smallest mammals, but their medium-sized relatives were doomed, for the large fires simply leave insufficient resources for them. Hungry, they would have foraged in ever-more dangerous and open places, until predators or malnutrition finished them off. By the time replacement animals could migrate from distant areas, fire would have destroyed their refuges too. If this admittedly speculative hypothesis is correct, then why didn't medium-sized mammals follow the path of extinction 40,000 years ago, along with the Pleistocene giants? I suggest that this Birds like these Brolgas are less affectedby fire than medium-sized animals because they can easily move to the most suitable areas. 236 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY l.lliplrolodor,op1atum 2.�- 3. ZygomoturUs -.S ... 17. Procoptodon rap/1'1 18. Procoptodon pusio 19. Proc.optodontnasensis C'I .:,t. 34. ������9-..�Sthenurusmaddocki 3S. Sthenurus andersoni 36. Thytacoleo camifex 37. Macropus antilopinus 38. Maaopus robu S2. Sthenurusgilli S3. Wall S6. Warendja wakefieldi S7. Z.glossusramsayi SS. Oendrolagus bennettianus MAMMALSMARKED FOR EXTINCTION Schematic representation of Australian mam mals that weighed more than ten kilograms be fore the arrival of humans. Species coloured grey became extinct some 30-40,000 years ago, those in blue became extinct in historic times, and those in pink have suffered drastic range reductions. This impoverishment of Australia's large animals must have affected plant communities and thus fireregimes. VO L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 237 i;: ;i:CD ::, l § Reptiles survivefires and their aftermath because they can readily find shelter and can exist for long periods without food. "' ._;.______, 238 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY 'trophic cascade' of extinctions was arrested by the Aborigines' practice of The Latest LostList firestick farming. Really large fires must have struck at the core of Aboriginal Species Habitat Last Recorded existence, for the loss of the medium-sized mammals, which were an important food Thyladne ( Thylacinuscynocephalus) Tas. 1936 source, could have spelled disaster DesertBandicoot following the loss of the megafauna. Thus it (Perameleserem/ana) centre 1931 was crucial for Aborigines to halt the Pig-� Bandicoot extinction cascade. Whether deliberately (Chaeropusecaudatus) south,centre 1907 or through trial and error, they apparently LesserBilby found that if they continually burned the (Macrod.sleucura) centre 1931 landscape, small fires-not large ones Broad-faced Potoroo resulted. Small fires do not affect the (Potoromplatyops) drysouth-west 1875 medium-sized mammals and, because of DesertRat-kangaroo ( Caloprymnusampestris) centre 1935 insufficient fuel, really large blazes could Eastern Hare-wallaby not threaten the animals' resources. Thus (Lagorchestes lepo,ides) dry south-east 1891 was born the important management CentralHare-wallaby technique of firestick farming. Of course at (Lago,dlesteasomatus) centre 1932 present such management is not given as a Crescent Nailtail Wallaby reason for lighting fires, but it is inevitably a ( Onyd,oga/ea/unata) south-west,centre 1956 result. ToolacheWallaby It appears that things went well for (Macropusg reyl) south-eastsavanna 1924 White-footed Rabbit-rat 40,000 years or so, until Europeans came ( Conilurusa/bipes ) dry south-east 1870s along and removed both Aborigines and Gould's Mouse firestick farming from the landscape. In the (Pseudomysgouldi,) south,centre 1860s series of gigantic blazes that have erupted Alice SpringsMouse periodically in Australia's arid regions in (Pseudomysfield/) centre 1985 historic times, that tragic extinction nativemouse cascade was allowed to flow again, and (Pseudomyssp .) south-eastsavanna 7 finally it consumed our beautiful LesserStick-nest Rat bandicoots,wallabies and native mice. (Lepori//us apkalis) centre 1933 �red Hopping Mouse (Notomysmacrotis) drysouth-west 1844 LREADY I HEAR CRITICS SHARPENING their knives at my scenario, so perhaps Long-tailedHopping Mouse A (N. longlawdatus) south-west,centre 1902 it is best to meet their questions head on Short-tailedHopping Mouse and tackle the really difficult issues. They (N.amplus) centre 1896 are, to my mind, the following. Darling Downs Hopping Mouse The fact that much of the Australian (N. mon1ax) east 1840s vegetation is highly adapted to fires hopping mouse indicates to some people that fire has been (Notomyssp .) centre 7 part of the landscape for millions of years and thus could not have caused thf. Two immature Pig-footed Bandicoots. Like the Kirlilpi, or DesertBandicoot, and 15 other medium extinctions. I suspectthat fire has not been sized mammals, theseanimals vanished from Australia after European settlement. Why? I ______,z L______V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 239 overwhelmingly important in the Australian ecosystem until people arrived. Many of the features that we think are adaptations to fire (such as the lignotubers of mallee eucalypts) may have developed in response to other factors, such as low soil nutrient levels (as suggested in 1968 in a paper by N.C.W. Beadle of the University of New England). Thus our flora may be pre-adapted to fire, and 40,000 years of intense fire selection may have greatly benefitted such pre-adapted species, but it is as yet far from clear that our flora evolved in a fire-dominated system. Furthermore, analysis of pollen cores taken from Lake George near Canberraand other locationsmakes it clear that there has been a marked increase in fire and a change in vegetation type. However, this did not occuron Lake George some 120,000 years ago as previously thought, but perhaps around 50-60,000 (or maybeeven 40,000 years ago), as suggested by Dr Richard Wright of Sydney University in 1986 using direct correlation. I suspect that this fire change will eventually befound to coincide with the megafaunal extinction event. Other people, no doubt, will feel that the introduced fox and cat should be given more credit for the extinctions. After all, the offshoreislands where these predatorsnever reached have acted as refuges for many species that became extinct on the The Thyladne became extinct on the mainland 2,000 years ago and in Tasmania by the 1940s. (Photo taken at BeaumarisZoo, Hobart, in the early 1930s.) Inset: the rarely photographed Desert Rat-kangaroo was last recorded in 1935. Rock wallabies such as Petrogalelateralis are the only medium-sizedmammals to have survived in central Australia. Their rocky habitat may insulate them from the effects of fire. 240 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY mainland. It is true that many medium mammal extinctions should sound a note of sized mammal species still survive on island warning. Already these historic and refuges. However, I suggest that multiple prehistoric extinctions are the greatest factors are responsible for this. By their seen in Australia since the age of the very nature these island refuges are not dinosaurs, and there may be more to come. Discover susceptible to supporting enormous fires. Trees live hundreds of years. How are The vegetation is salt-pruned and, in many they, particularly their seedlings, faring cases, topography prevents all-en with the new fire regime? And perhaps our Borneo compassing fires from taking hold. Even if plague species, such as rabbits, need to be they are burned, an important part of the re-evaluated in the light of this hypothesis. with extinction equation is missing: there are no Are they really part of the same mammalian predators on the refuge catastrophe, with those megafaunal Civilised Adventure islands. Animals can therefore forage in extinctions of long ago'opening' the land to exposed positions without being eaten. them, creating an ecological 'gap' in which Join one of our cultural/ wildlife Although, of course, times would be lean they could proliferate? Finally, extinctions tours to the island of Borneo. after fires, some animals would survive. of large mammals have happened in other Explore the beautiful states of Thus it is not the lack of cats or foxes per se parts of the world in the last 40,000 years. that is important in maintaining these Are other nations also suffering ongoing Sabah and Sarawak and learn refuges, but the lack of any form of ecological collapse? Whatever the case, it is about the fascinating Dyak mammalian predation, as well as diverse clear that we need to understand much cultures, stay with Iban people topography. more about our distant past in order to And why should only the mammals of the manage the present. • in their longhouse. Visit Mount arid zone suffer, and not those of the wetter Kinabalu, the highest mountain areas where fire is also important? Species such as the Brush-tailed Bettong Suggested Reading in South East Asia(13,455') and (Bettongia penicillata) and Numbat Beadle, N.C.W., 1968. Some Aspects of the delve into the mysteries of Mulu (Myrmecobius fasciatus) survive today only Ecology an d Physiology of Australian Caves - claimed to be the in the wettest parts of their former ranges. Xeromorphic Plants. Aust. J. Sci.30: 348-355. Indeed, rock-wallabies, in their fire Jones, R., 1969. Firestick Farming. Aust. largest cave system in the world. insulated rocky ranges, have survived even Nat. Hist. 16: 224--228. Enjoy the antics of wild baby in central Australia. Clearly something is Wright, R., 1986. How Old is Zone Fat Lake Orang Utans learning to live different in these places, even though foxes George? Archaeol.in Oceania21: 138-139. again in the wild. Journey to and cats are present. I suspect that the fires Dr Tim flannery began his scientific career study themselves are different. Because of the ing palaeontology. He later became involved with Turtle Island and see green increased moisture and steepertopography studying Australasia's living mammals and has turtles heave themselves up the of the eastern and south-western coastal long wondered how the dramatic events of the dis regions, larger unburned areas survive to tant past have affected the present fauna. The ad beach to lay their eggs. act as refuges for vulnerable species. mitledly speculative hypothesis he develops here has If correct, this new view of Australia's wide implications for wildlife management. Borneo. Nature's Wonderland! for your brochure mail !his coupan to: THE ------""'·"'TRAVEL. PROFESSIONALS 209 1borak Rd. South Yarra l'ic 3141 Licence So. 30098 Name: ______Address: ______ ______?!Code__ _ Phone: ______or Phone: (03) 240 8188 Toll Free (008) 331054 "" V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 241 "Finding the accurate ageof Dreamtime mt has been, and rontinues to be, an exciting challenge." NEWCLOCKS ON OLD ROCKS BY ALAN WATCHMAN SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE CANBERRA COLLEGE OF ADVANCED EDUCATION l"SrR \L'\'> ,\BORIGI:-AL LEGE:-;D ter in South Australia were dated at about !mks the .origin of rock art with the 3.500 years on the basis of their probable Dreamt1me. The legend holds links with associated carbon-dated Athat. during the Creation Time. all things, archaeological layers in the deposit. A such as vams. birds and snakes. lived and number of smooth and scratched ochre walked around like humans; then in the fragments were found in an excavation at Dreamtlme (thought by scientists to be Keniff Cave in southern Queensland and. the time of the last ice age --about as dates of 19,000 years had been ob 20,000 years ago). all things changed into tained for the deposit, it was assumed Wandjina, :V1imi or other spirit figures. that the ochre drawings on the walls were which left their images on the rocks. of the same antiquity. The deep significance of rock art to In 1966, engraved fragments of rock Austrahan Aborigines is underlined by were found associated with charcoal in an the fact that it has continued to be repro excavation on Willeroo Station in the duced as part of traditional ceremonies Northern Territory. Dating of the char over hundreds, if not thousands, of years. coal revealed an age of 7,000 years for Finding the accurate age of Dreamtime the deposit in which the fragments were art has been, and continues to be, an ex located. and a date of slightly more than citing challenge. this was given for the creation of the en gravings. Charcoal collected from near STl�IATES OF THE GRE.H ,\:-;"TIQUITY dense concentrations of wall markings in of rock art have been based on the ad the Koonalda Cave in South Australia has vancedE state of weathering of the engrav been dated at about 20,000 years. The ings or the faded appearance of paintings. charcoal .was presumed to have orig Often speculative ages have been given to inated from wooden torches, carried into many painted and engraved sites without the cave for light by Aborigines in search sufficient scientific justification. In the of flint nodules. It was therefore proposed past paintings and engravings have been that the wall markings were of the same dated by using the archaeological context age as the charcoal. in which thev were found. Evidence for Examples of archaeologically dated the age of rock art has rested with re ochres are from Cape York Peninsula in covering either fragments of ochre or Queensland (6,870 years), Warburton fallen pieces of engraved rock surfaces Ranges in Western Australia (7,000 associated with charcoal from excavated years), Graman (5,000 years) and Cloggs occupation shelters. (Charcoal in the de Cave (18.000 years) in New South Wales, posits can then be systematically dated and the Alligator Rivers region (22,000 using the radiocarbon method.) For ex years) and Deaf Adder Creek (19.960 ample, in 1929. abraded grooves found on years) in the N'orthern Territory. These the back wall of Dernn Downs rock shel- dates suggest that Aboriginal artists ,. Estimates of the age of rock engravings have been based on the degree of weathering or archaeologicalassociations . Recent researchinto the surfacevarnishes that fonn overthe engrav ings may give more accurate minimum agesfor the art. pressions obtained from the art. Because mixed with earth ingredients to increase different people view artistic objects in a their adhesion to the rock surface, have variety of ways, the time frames allocated not been reported in the paintings. If or to particular styles and objects will also ganic substances, such as resin, blood and vary. For example, there are two views plant extracts, had been used to bind the on when stencils of boomerangs in paint to the rock, then it may be possible Kakadu were first painted: one view esti to date the art using carbon isotopes. mates an age of 20,000 years; the other Australian Aboriginal painters either did 9,000 years. The dates put forward de not mix any binding agent with the ochres pend on how one interprets the effects of and clays but applied the finely ground, climatic change and environmental con coloured earth materials directly onto the ditions on Aboriginal society, particularly rock face, or any previous organic binder on the development of boomerangs as has been oxidised and has now dissipated weapons and hunting implements. The from the ochre. older date is suggested because at that Dating the weathered rock surface on time the northern part of Australia was which the art has been painted or en much drier and cooler than today, and a graved may yield more direct information thrown stick or boomerang was devel about the antiquity of the art. Engravings oped as a hunting implement to kill birds have been made into weathered rock and and other scarce animals where there either infilled by weathering products or were fewer trees. The younger date is have been partly covered by later de suggested by those who believe the posits of varnish. Paintings are found wetter conditions about 9,000 years ago above weathered rock, as layers within caused rapid flooding of the river valleys thick multi-layered crusts, and also be Paintings of extinct fauna, such as this Thyla cine at Ubirr, Kakadu, have been dated using and created great stress on the inhabi neath thin siliceous films. Dating layers their association with known, specific tants, forcing social and hunting practices beneath art gives a maximum age for the extinctions. The white deposit that covers the to change in response to the environmen art whereas dating surface coatings rear quarters of the animal is a mixture of gyp tal conditions. Wetter conditions meant above art establishes a minimum age for sum and polyhalitesalts deposited from surface greater numbers of birds and a new the art. The ideal situation is to find an water flowingacross the rock. method of catching birds needed to be de ochre 'sandwich' where a layer of ochre veloped in order to exploit this abundant lies between a surface coating and a bot were at work throughout Australia for resource. The conflicting dates for the in tom crust, both of which can be dated. Re many thousands of years. troduction of boomerangs means that the cent research into the formation and age Paintings of ships, guns and human fig age of their art remains a mystery. of the surfaces and layers on weathered ures on horseback have been used to date rock art sites is providing hope for more the so-called contact period with Eur LL THESE METHODS GIVE ONLY VERY accurate dating of rock art. opeans-that is, over the last few hun A approximate ages for the art, for Engravings, chipped and pecked into dred years. Similarly, extinct fauna and they do not date the art itself, the weath hard doleritic and quartzitic rock pave other animals and plants depicted in ered substrate on which the art was ments and boulders, have been dated by paintings have been used to estimate the painted or engraved, or the process by using the surface varnishes that have age of some art styles because of their as which it was produced. formed over them. Smooth, shiny and sociation with specific extinctions, or past Organic binders, thought to have been dark-coloured varnishes are generally geomorphological and climatic regimes. People have also attempted to place art styles into time frames based on past en vironmental conditions. Categories of art styles, developed from arrays of motifs or subjects depicted in the paintings in rock shelters in Kakadu National Park, have been used to create chronological se quences for the art. In Kakadu, the styles and motifs have been linked to geomorphological events, such as pre estuarine, estuarine and freshwater phases of coastal evolution, over the last 20,000 years. For example, X-ray de scriptive paintings of barramundi, mullet and estuarine catfish are thought to have been painted during the period when estuaries developed on the shoreline, be tween 1,000 and 9,000 years ago. Thrown objects, such as boomerangs, throwing sticks and spears, and hand and grass prints are believed to have been painted in a much drier period, about 30,000 years ago, when grasslands domi nated the landscape. Interpretation of the motifs and styles depends on personal feelings and im- � � Sailing ships were painted during the 'contact period'with Europeans-about 150 years ago. � L------' AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY 244 In Kakadu, X-ray paintings of fish have been linked to the period when estuaries developed on the coast, between 1,000 and 9,000 years ago. Thepaintings have been highlighted with ReckittsBlue duringrepainting in the 1960sfor the benefitof photographers. found on exposed rock surfaces in semi arid climatic regions. They consist of finely dispersed clays, iron, titanium and manganese oxides, quartz and traces of organic chemicals. Thin laminations have been deposited and cemented by natural weathering processes, including micro organic activity, which catalyses the in teractions between the scarce water, dust particles and the underlying rock. Metabolism of inorganic chemicals by mi crobes that live on and in the weathered rock leads to the production of organic Hand and boomerang stencils were made by spraying paint from the mouth. Estimatesof the age of boomerang stencils vary greatly accord ing to how one interprets the effects of climatic change and environmental conditions on Abor iginal society. Dating the weathering surfaces that form below and above the art should re solvethe problem. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9 -90 245 compounds and to the formation of com plex mineral assemblages in the surface crusts. If we assume that varnish begins to form soon after the surface has been engraved, determining the age of the rock varnish establishes the minimum age for exposing the underlying surface during the engraving process, and hence gives an approximate age for the engrav ing. Varnishes containing underlying ma terials that can be radiocarbon-dated have been found in the Broken Hill dis trict of New South Wales. An age of 7,000 years was determined for carbon in the calcium carbonate that partly coated a varnished, but not engraved, rock sur face. Younger carbonate layers, about 3,500 years old, have been found on en gravings; it is probable that other older carbonate layers contain some engrav ings that are now below the ground. A revolutionary technique, which uses the ratio of selected cations (positively Traditional Aboriginal paintings, composed of clays, ochres and other natural earth substances, charged particles such as potassium, cal were applied with grass, pliable twig brushes,fingers or hands. cium and titanium) leached from the weathered rock, has recently been devel that the cation leaching curve will remain oped to date rock engravings. This constant over long periods of time, es 'cation-ratio' method was used in the pecially during periods of climatic change. Olary province of South Australia to date Although potassium and calcium are engravings on patinated, fine-grained car added continuously to the surface crust bonate rock. For the cation-ratio method from dust, rain and aerosols, they are also to be effective in dating engravings, a lost through weathering processes. 'calibrated cation leaching curve' must Another assumption of the cation-ratio first be established. This is done by cali method is that titanium is immobile; that brating the ratios of potassium and cal is, it does not move in or out of the weath cium to titanium in the varnish, against a ered rock. However, when complexed known time scale. Potassium-Argon, with other chemicals, such as occurs radiocarbon or some other geo under the groundwater conditions that chronological method of dating must then leach potassium and calcium, titanium be be used to produce numerical ages for comes mobile and can be lost from the samples that can be analysed for their cat crust. ion elemental concentrations. One problem with this dating method is Smooth, shiny, dari<- A painted dusty surface in a rock shelter at Anbangbang, Kakadu. Beneaththe surface dust layer is a thick, multi-layered crust composedof calcium oxalate, salts, quartz grains and day particles(cross-section inset). In some rockshel ters the oxalate minerals are green-black and shiny (inset). 246 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY The cation-ratiomethod of datingrock art relies on the establishment of a calibrated cation 13 leaching curve (red line), whereby the ratios of 12 potassium (K) and calcium (Ca) to titanium (TI) present in the varnish covering the engraving 0 11 are calibrated against a known time scale. This 10 method of dating is in its early stages of devel opment and there are currently several sources � 9 of potential error (blue and green lines). (Redrawnfrom Nobbs and Dorn1988). 3 8 + � 7 micro-organisms. Mineral-laden ground waters, which flow across the quartzitic 6 substrates, not only contain dissolved sil 5 ica but also carry nutrients that support microbiological activity. Metabolism of 4 the nutrients in the water changes the 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 chemistry of the remaining liquid to such an extent that the silica is no longer sol YEARS BEFORE PRESENT uble and it precipitates onto the rock sur face and, in the process, fossilises the micro-organisms. Using the cation-ratio method, m1m Researchers are currently looking for a mum ages of up to 30,000 years have way of dating the traces of organic matter been reported for engravings near Olary. that may be trapped in the siliceous film. Once the micro-geochemical and analyti Chemical extractions of minute quantities cal problems are overcome, the pro of remnant organic substances in the cedure may have potential for many rock fossilised microbiological structures are surfaces where samples from thick being used to obtain trace amounts of patinated engravings can be readily col carbon-14 for AMS dating. The dates ob lected and analysed without defacing the tained will provide ages for the formation site. of the silica deposit, which enclosed the Another technique that relies on art. For some rock paintings, such as the radiocarbon dating has yielded an age of Mimi-style in Kakadu, these recent ad approximately 9,000 years for thick, vances should allow the discovery of very multi-layered crusts beneath painted sur old ages, perhaps as much as 30,000 faces in Kakadu National Park. The car years old. In the sandstone shelters in bon used to date the crusts occurs in an coastal New South Wales, dating silica oxalate mineral called whewellite, which skins over art should confirm recent ages has been deposited as a result of biologi for the charcoal drawings. As yet these cal activity on the rock face. Lichens and recent advances have not been tried on micro-organisms produce quantities of samples from previously dated (archaeo oxalic acid as a product of their metabolic logically or other methods) rock art sites processes. Reaction of oxalic acid with and it would be fascinating to see how the calcium and other cations in the weath different dating methods compare.• ered rock and in groundwaters results in the formation of the dark laminated SuggestedReading coatings on which the art has been painted. Dragovich, 0., 1986. Minimum Age of Some This approach has good potential for DesertVarnish nearBroken Hill, N.S.W. Search dating rock surfaces where oxalate-rich 17: 149-151. minerals have been deposited. Further Dragovich, 0., 1987. Desert Varnish and White silica skin covering finelypainted figures Problems Dating Rock Engravings in Western (Jim Jim) in the Northern Territory. Inset: SEM refinements of the AMS dating method, New SouthWales. Pp. 28-35 in Archaeometry: of part of a silica skin. The bubbly texture is such as allowing micro-grams of minerals Further Australasian Studies, ed. by W.R. caused by the fossilisation of micro-organisms to be dated, will greatly assist the re Ambroseand J.M. Mummery. ANU:Canberra. by a thin film of amorphous silica. alistic dating of rock faces on which art Edwards, R., 1979. Australian Aboriginal has been placed. Art. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies: On many exposed quartzitic rock faces Canberra. in Kakadu and in sandstone shelters in Nobbs, M.F. & Dorn, R.I., 1988. Age Deter New South Wales, Queensland and New minations for Rock Varnish Formation within Zealand, thin siliceous films have formed Petroglyphs: Cation-ratio Dating of 24 Motifs from the Olary Region, South Australia. Rock over art. The clear to translucent milk ArtResearch 5:1 08-124. white films generally protect the art from Watchman, A.L, 1987. PreliminaryDetermi weathering and are thought to form nations of the Age and Compositionof Mineral under specific environmental conditions Salts on Rock Art Surfaces in the Kakadu over relatively short time spans. Examin National Park. Pp. 36--42 in Archaeomet,y: ation of these silica skins has revealed a Further Australasian Studies, ed. by W.R. close association between their compo Ambroseand J.M. Mummery.ANU: Canberra. sition and formation and the activities of Dr John Head of the Radiocarbon Dating Lab Mr Alan Watchman is a senior lecturer in rock art oratory, ANU, extracts carbon for carbon-14 conservationat the CCAE. He is cu"ently research dating from the oxalate mineral whewellite ing crust formations and the age of various weath found in a multi-layered crust in Kakadu ered rock surfaces, with a view to developing tech National Park. niques to conserverock art. V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , 5 U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 247 ANGERED llAllE& END It is crucial to find out whether the popu lation is stable, growing or declining, and to "/fMicrostrobos is consistent with some understand the processes involved. that have very slow Already it is evident that many mature other podocarps foliage. the largest specimens could plants have large amounts of dead growth rates, The plateau above the falls supports the be up to 1,000 years old." urban areas of the City of Blue Mountains, and runoff from the plateau drains over the falls. At five of the six Microstrobos sites, the water spraying over the plants is pol luted by this urban runoff. Unfortunately, the one site with clean water and about 25 LIVING ON THE EDGE per cent of the total population is unre- served and unprotected. This site is obvi ously the most importantfor the continued survival of the species.Jones suspectsthat the high levels of salts and other nutrients in the polluted waters may be causing ac BY IAN BROWN celerated growth of algae on the foliage of AND WILDLIFE SERVICE the plants, resulting in the dieback. Or the NATIONAL PARKS pollution might be having a more direct toxic effect. The research program will 1------t eventually resolve whether these fears are NDER THE COLD SPRAY OF A FEW justified; meanwhile the proximityof urban waterfalls in the Blue Mountains development will always present a threat to west of Sydney, there lives a most the species. remarkableU plant. Microstrobos fitzgeraldii Microstrobos holds many mysteries, in has no common name, probably because it cluding how it achieves sexual repro is not at all common. In fact, it is one of duction. Answers are needed on this if we Australia's rarest and most interesting are to ensure its survival. Like many other conifers. conifers, individual Microstrobos plants are Microstrobos fitzgeraldii is only found either one sex or the other, with either beside waterfalls where the 200-metre male or female cones. Sothe scattered dis sandstone cliffs face southwards into the tribution of the plants raises the issue of Jamison and Megalong Valleys, forming the how the sporophylls produced by the male abrupt edge of the Blue Mountains plateau. cones get together with the ovules of the Here, well shaded and with a constant female cones. Wind is unlikely to be an ef supply of water dripping or blowing over ficient disperser in the constant wetness them, they can survive in the conditions for but water could be effective. This would re which they are adapted. quire the male plants to grow abovethe fe Microstrobos is forced to live teetering male plants at the same location. Because on the edge, quite literally, as it cannot tol only a small proportionof plants have cones erate drying out or too much competition at any time, a long period of observation from other plants. Colonisation of the will be necessary to determine the distri waterfalls themselves is not possible. Some Branchletsof Microstrobosfitzgera/dii. bution of male and female plants. seedlings may survive a year or two but Animal agents may be another possi eventually a battering flood scrapes them five of the falls where Microstrobos occurs. bility, but as yet no evidence exists. The away. Even where they can grow to ma- Mr Wyn Jones of the New South Wales plant also regenerates readily from broken turity, the geological instability of the National Parks and Wildlife Service has pieces that lodge in favourable sites, and waterfall zone places them at risk. been undertaking a major research pro cuttings are the only known method of Rockfalls can occur and whole ledges of gram into Microstrobos. His first task is to propagation. matted vegetation have been seen to peel establish how many plants there are, where Also mysterious is the age of the plants. off the cliff. they are and what sort of condition they are If Microstrobos is consistent with some Squeezed into the narrow zone between in. This has involved many days of cold and other podocarps that have very slow drought and flood, there are a mere six lo- unpleasant work; many plants can only be growth rates, the largest specimens could cations where Microstrobosfitzgeraldii can reached by abseiling down the dripping beup to 1,000 years old even though their be found. The plant's earlier distribution is cliffs. trunks are less than 20 centimetres thick. unknown but it is likely that it was more The rewards for these efforts are the Jones hopes to find out by drilling a core widespread during the wetter and cooler spectacular environment and the essential from a large individual and studying the climatic periods. It is now a relict species, data that are beingobtained as the basis for growth rings. forced almost to extinction by the relatively regular monitoring of the population. At Although at first I didn't think much of it, recent drying out of the Australian conti- this stage it looks as if there are about 300 Microstrobos grows on you as knowledge nent. plants. Although some may be new increases. This tenacious and specialised The first systematic study of the distri- seedlings, the difference between the two plant has survived for thousands of years bution and conservation status of surveys is due to well-hiddenand inaccess through climate changes and the vagaries Microstrobos was carried out by local re- ible individuals that were previously over of its precarious habitat. It now remains to searcher Jim Smith in 1980. He surveyed looked, or as part of a clump considered be be seen whether it can endure the press potential sites, finding at least one new lo- fore to be only individual plants. It is ures of civilisation. • cation and a total of 203 plants. At that time difficultto determine where one plant stops all sites were largely unprotected. How- and another one starts, due to their often Mr Ian Brownis a ranger with the NSWNational ever in 1987, about 3,000 hectares of the creeping habit. Even separating rootsfrom Parks i5 escarpment country were added to the stems can be difficult as both can and Wildltfe Service in the Blue Mountains. a:� have He is also a photographer, naturalist and outdoor Blue Mountains National Park, including green foliage. � '------enthusiast. --_j 252 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY DO YOU KNOW ... �* .,,,,.� llf"' a,. ·,-,ff- WHICH famous artist THAILAND Natural coloured by numbers on A holiday of smiles Flinder's circumnavigation? .}//1 ,... H History WHAT voltage monotremes run.. on? of HOW termites played tennis? � WHEN the colour of Money Dalhousie /{(\ was black & white? TOURISM AUTHORllY OF THAILAND FIND OUT IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF ANH. 12TH FLOOR, ROYAL EXCHANGE BUILDING SUBSCRIPTION FORM IS IN THE BACK. 56 PITT ST, SYDNEY 2000 Springs PH: (02) 27 7549, 27 7540 FAX: (02) 241 2465 Edited by W. Zeidler and W. F. Ponder EMU TOURS in association with the Royal llalhouSI< Spnngs � !he largest natur� drscllaroe from !he Australasian Ornithologists Union GreatArteswi Basu,, It IS a U01Que Austrahin etMronmentand s A F A R a refuoelo< a founa whichwas more Wldespteadv.llen central s Austraha's CMmate was wetter. This book reports the results of Four-wheel drive small group safaris studies on !he springs and shows tllat theycontain abou1 20 endemtcJQWtlC nmal speaes,indudlf'IO three or four fish, at 1990 PROGRAM INCLUDES least SIX motfuscs, several cruSl>CeanSand possibly a yabboe into nature's own backyard. Camp oven and frog. The"'""""- around!he Sl)r""lS sul)l)Ort -Searching for the Night Parrot on Camels one eodefnlCplant speaesand several othmwhich are rare. cooking. Sleep under the stars in our -Lamington National Park and the Warrumbungles The spnngs tre atso an impor1anl Abongmal srte. -Western Victoria in springtime luxury swags. all over! -Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands Nalurat History of D1lbou1ie Springs wiN be o1 pirtK:Ular Australia '1te This is the second volume of this magnificent series. Cat. No. 88 0379 4 Excellent coverage is provided of the families of native Casebound $79.95 Australian mammals To order - Australian context. General essays are included on the Phone your credit card details to the AGPS Phone origin of mammals, morphology, physiology, natural Shop 008-02 0049 (toll free) on line 24 hours, history, biogeography and phylogeny. Anyone interested 7 days a week. AUSTRALIAN in the mammals of Australia will find this volume an Canberra customers call 95 4861. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING indispensable companion. SERVICE V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 253 VIEWS FROM THE FOURTH DIMENSION Watching their frog-like behaviour, I had to remind myself that these creatures were "The world is filled with creatures like fish. Yet they seemed to avoid the water, the leaP-fish, with onefoot poised on a springing into the air with their strong arm threshold, unknowingly waiting their like fins ahead of the rush, sometimes resting on the trunks of reclining mangrove big chance; rabbits in nature's hat. " trees or lumps of rockalong the shore, per haps like the first rambunctious Devonian fish that teetered on the brink of an inviting shore and the dawn of amphibianhood. Sure, these modem mudskippers are knocking much too late on the edge of the AS LONG AS LIFE'S HAT land because the first fish-amphibians crossed that threshold over 360 million years ago and their descendants, in the HAS RABBITS form of frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals, would be all too pleased for a meal of in cautious leap-fish.No, that door into the fu BY MICHAEL ARCHER ture is probably closed-but perhaps only SCHOOLOF BIOLOGICALSCIENCE for the moment. UNIVERSITYOF NEW SOUTl-1WALES What if something utterly devastating were to happento the back-boned animals of the land? Perhaps total destruction of the ESTERDAY, INTENT ON PALAEONTO- vast mud flats. Presumably they were look ozone layer would, at least temporarily, logical business, I dangled from the ing for food scraps left behind by the pre make life on land intolerable for its current jagged edges of limestone blades 50 vious tide or perhaps avoiding predators in occupants. Then, after the last smell of rot Ymetres above the base of Western the deeper brown waters that 'boiled' up ting sunburnedflesh blended with the new Australia's Napier Range, searching for behind them. balance of atmospheric gases, perhaps this remnants of cave deposits that might have filled prehistoric cavities in these gargan tuan stone teeth. Three hundred and sixty five million years ago, during late Devonian time, this limestone first accumulated as a barrier reef at least 300 kilometres long. It guarded the southern margin of the Kimberleyregion from the open oceanthat then filled the Canning Basin to the south 1-just as the Great Barrier Reef todaygrows and crumbles offQueensland's coast. Where I clung to the limestone pin nacles high abovea hot 'sea'of red sand and domes of yellowing spinifex, massive heads of bright coral were once awash in serging waters lanced by strange fish. The ocean waters have long since gone to lap on brighter reefs in younger places; the strange Devonian fish metamorphosed through time to become even stranger things like me. As the spawn of their urge to adapt and reproduce, I returnto gazeat the remnants of myself in former lives: dis- carded head shields that protrude from the eroding rock like rusted armour, aging photos in a family album of life. In younger cavities in the archaic stone, bones of wallabies, bats, rats and even humans ac cumulate, waiting to be cemented into new time capsules, to jut provocatively at our successors from limestones yet to be formed. Relentless, purposeless, collossal cycles of reefs, erosion, life and more life. Today we visited the Derby jetty-an eerie centipede-like construction that at low tide stands high and dry, a sentinel waiting for an air-ship from the Twilight Zone. I watched mudskippersdance like de ranged frogs at the leading edge of the rushing sea as it streamed in across the w Muscular fins and the ability to breathe air en ; abled some Devonian fish to survive on land. "'z :r (From The Rise of Ufe by John Reader, 1986, Q Collins.) 254 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY time and those of the first successful fish Wildlife Safaris amphibian colonists on Australia's shores have been many millions of years of dark of forests. The real home of the emus and kangaroos, as well as of almost all other Australian animals, was the vast, ancient Gondwanan rainforest that once stretched AFRICA in a continuous belt from South America to Discoverthe wildlife and culture of Queensland-lush, tropical, lowland, spec fascinating Africa! tacularly rich and at least 45 million years old, the time when Australia severed its last Explore this amazingcontinent at ties with Antarctica. your leisure, choose from our We are discovering the extent to which exciting range of accommodated this is true from our studies of 25 to 15 and camping, wildlife safaris, million-year-old fossil rainforest depositsat adventures or treks. If somethingutterly devastating were to happen Riversleigh in north-westernQueensland 2• to land vertebrates, perhaps mudskippers, Here we have found, among hundreds of Imagine 11 days of the best game 'teeteringon the edge', could renew the cycle of new kinds of animals, pre-grazing kanga vertebrate conquestof dry land. roos, pre-koalas, pre-wombats, pre-moles, viewing in the world. Visit pre-brushtail possums, pre-platypuses and Tunzania and see Lake Manyara, little leap-fish, filled with great expec even pre-emus. In these lowland Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. tations and potential,could renew the cycle rainforests there were representatives of Camp and stay in simple Bandas of vertebrate conquest of dry land. 34 families of mammals. Surely this was the Fortunately for Life's future, the world is wellspring for the first colonists of arid Aus and Lodges. filled with creatures like the leap-fish, with tralia? Todaythere are still21 families rep Explore SouthernAfrica, 22 days one footpoised on a threshold, unknowingly resented in the remnants of Australia's waiting their big chance; rabbits in nature's rainforest but only 13 in Australia's arid travelling through some of the hat. What, after all, are Sugar Gliders if lands. Without a doubt, rainforest has been remotest parts of Zimbabwe. they are not also pre-pouched 'bats' or in the past and continuesto be in the pre Canoe the Zambezi River and visit legless lizards if they are not potential sent, hectare for hectare, this continent's Chi.zariraNational Park famous for 'snakes' or otters potential 'seals' or richest reservoir of biological diversity. 'whales'? All creatures are blends of adap Just as mudskippers wait at the edge of its Black Rhino. tation and unplanned potential. our waterless world, restrained for the mo At Destinations International we Far from the mangrove muds and fossil ment by evolutionary events of the distant reefs of the Kimberley Region, in the red past but willing and probably able to colon know Africa! We can design the sands of the centre, are Emus and Red ise the land if its present occupantsvanish, itinerary to satisfy your needs. Kangaroos-like me, the evolutionary the plethora of diverse creatures peering Africa, its waiting for you now! great grandchildren of the fish that from the edges of our diminishing swarmed over the Napier Range's rainforests, like rabbits in a green hat, may Devonian reef. In these vast arid lands be Australia's most important warehouse (which fill a respectable 44 per cent of our for renewal of life on this continent. They continent-3.3 million square kilometres), did it magnificently once before; presum live 126 speciesof mammals, 51 percent of ably they could do it again. Unfortunately, Australia's total. To most of us, these des our lack of care for this magic hat of genetic ert species,like the Red Kangarooand Emu wealth belies its importance and affronts that decorate Australia's coat of arms, sym our intelligence. bolise this continent. Flies, sun and sandy The widespread indifference many poli animalsj ust seem as naturally Australian as ticians and business folk show for the wel Vegemite. fare of rainforest is more than a threat to To anyone who understands that the the viability of nature's hat of renewal: it's a present is an illusion of stability in a con kind of biological matricide. Like the first tinuum of change inexorably converting the rainforest kangaroos and emus, the first past into the future, it's not so much the tremulous steps of our own ancestors were contemporary diversity of living things in upon the dappled floor of an African for your brochure mail this coupon to: our ecosystems that matters; it's under rainforest. Rainforests were the mother of standing how that diversity originated and what has beenand, barring our avaricious Destinations developed as a means for best-guessing stupidity, may bethe mother of all that is to ._ be as long as the green hat stays full. • � International probable changes to come. In practice, , r; ecosystems cannot be fully understood or 4th Floo 259 Collins Street, protected without information about how SuggestedReading Melbourne, Vic. 3000 and why they are changing through time. 1 Ritcllie,A., 1985. The Gogo Ash. Pp. 102- The Travel Professionals Pty Ltd. Can we, for example, really understand the 108 in Kadimakara:Extinct Vertebrates of Aus Licence No. 30098 role played by humans in outbreaks of the tralia, ed.by P.V. Riclland G.F. van Tets.Pion eerDesign Studio: Melbourne. Name: ______Crown of Thoms Starfish without knowing 2 Arcller, M., Godthelp, H., Hand, S.J., if such outbreaks occurredbefore humans Megirian, D., 1989. Fossil Mammals of Address: ______arrived in Australia? Riversleigh,Northwestern Queensland: Prelimi But, like mudskippers, the desert ani nary Overview of Biostratigraphy, Correlation mals are in fact rambunctious upstarts, in and Environmental Change. Aust. Zoo/. 25: this case descendants of rainforest ances 29-65. P/Code ____ Toi ____ tors that have successfully colonised new Associate Professor Michael Archer lectures in bi or 'vacant' habitats in Australia. Like the arid ologyat the University of New South Wales. Most of Phone: (03) 650 5525 lands they thrive in, most are much less his no11-teachinghours are devoted to the study of the than ten million years old. Between their Riversleighfossil fau11a. Toll Free (008) 331054 ANH VO L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9 -90 255 I .I I sided Rainbow Skink but those wretched "We should recognise species by females are so similar and difficult to ident ify with my poor eyes. recognising if they recognise Baza: l am not going to tell you. themselves!" Koala: So you were not paying attention! Your bird-of-prey eyes are capable of see ing the minutia of their scales at this dis tance. Obviously you were thinking of your BESTIALITY & THE belly in the middle of our empirical obser vations. I am disappointed. Baza: l am not going to tell because of the RECOGNITION experiment! Those lizards were irrelevant to our question. What we saw were two in dividuals that did not recognise each other OF SEXUALMA TES as mates. They played no part in helping us to recognise a shared fertilisation system for a particular species. BY GLEN INGRAM & RALPHMOLNAR Koala: Don't be silly. That they did not rec ognise each other suggests the possibility VERTEBRA TE ZOOLOGY, QUEENSLANDMUSEUM that different species were involved in the VERTEBRATE FOSSILS,QUEENSLAND MUSEUM encounter. And, even if it was just a case of a conspecific female not being in breeding L------1 condition, it is still important that we ident Oramatis Personae apart with short sharpmovements, the male ify both individuals. The Biological SpeciesConcept stopped, faced the female and began to bob Baza: It is not. The opinion that species are groups of in his head. The female watched and the male Koala: It is. And you are just trying to win dividuals that breed among themselves but bobbed more vigorously. Suddenly she our argument by exploiting my poor eye are reproductively isolated from other such whipped around and sped off into the leaves sight. It is typical of you Recognition Con groups. leaving him standing at the start. cept supporters-youjust don't like to be The Recognition Concept of Species proved wrong. The opinion that species are groups of in Koala: Damn! Baza: And you are a typical supporter of dividuals, both male and female, that share Baza: What's wrong this time? If you com the Biological Species Concept. You won't a common fertilisation system. plain about your fork again, I shall close my accept that the infonnation you seek is ears. You chose this spot, not me. governed by your restrictive concept of a Reproductive Isolating Mechanisms Koala: I am comfortable, thank you. But species. The question you asked contained Characteristics of organisms that ensure my eyes are not what they used to be. Did your answer. Fancy asking me "What different species either don't mate or, if you see that female lizard well? species is the female?" when we are here they do, the mating is unsuccessful or the trying to gather raw data from which to de hybrids are infertile. cide "What is a species?" Fertilisation System Koala: What's the fuss? So I slippedup. Characteristics of organisms that con "The Recognition Baza: l do not think so. Answer me this: tribute towards fertilisation. why are those male skinks so brightly and Concept does not need distinctly coloured? another species to Koala: The colours and patterns are TheImportant Act species-specific-they are species adver Jn a densely vegetated park, a Koala definea species. ..they tisements. They inform a female that the hugged a thick branch while wedged in the are selfdefining. correct male is signalling. This ensures that fork of a tree. This would not have been un " females and males of different species do usual except for a Baza, which is a Crested not mate. The colour patterns function as Hawk, that was perched close by. But what pre-mating isolating mechanisms. was most unusual was what they were Baza: What you say is only true in part. doing. Unaffectedby their close proximity to Baza: Quick little devils aren't they? There Certainly the male colour patternsare sig each other, both stared intently at the one minute and gone the next. And so nals to a receiver, the female, but these are ground below. Beneath them different plump! only part of the overall fertilisation system. species of rainbow skinks glinted and shone Koala: You promised me you would eat be In reacting to the male colours, the female as they dashed through the litter of a fore we came. We are not going to settle does not say to herself "This male is the garden. Every now and again the lizards our disagreement over the nature of correct species and let's get into it." She met and presented their colours to the full. species if you fly down in the middle of our simply responds to stimuli that lead to Heads bobbed and throat colours of reds, experiment and eat the subjects. mating. There is no 'choice' on her part nor blues, blacks and yellows were displayed; red Baza, I have kept our bargain and stuffed does she 'recognise' the species. It is the or orange tails were hoisted to curl up and myself with phasmids. I was merely ex fertilisation system that leads to positive, down and forward with the tips wagging pressing the sentiments of a gourmand. I assorted mating. over their backs. Summer was near and am just as keen as you to observe these sex Koala: What on Earth are you trying to say? some of the males had their full breeding ual dichromatic skinks. Indeed, they are You are very obscure. colours of bold red, orange, pink or blue ideal for our purposes. Our observations Baza: Have you ever thought of having it stripes on their backs and sides. should help us decide on the correctness of off with a possum? Jn his haste to capture a moth, one male either the Biological SpeciesConcept or the Koala: l beg your pardon?? with vivid pink sides and blue throat ca Recognition Concept of Species. And I will Baza: Well, have you? reered into a dull brown and white female. be right. Koala: I have never been more insulted in She, too, had been intently pursuing the Koala: Well? all my life. moth. They had not seen each other till they Baza: Well what? Baza: No, you haven't chased possum.And crashed and, at first, they were a flurry of Koala: What species was that female? I you know why? It is not becauseyou say to feet, bodies and tails. Then, after moving could see the displaying male was a Pink- yourself "That animal is brown. That is a 256 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY possum.It is the wrong species. I will not the most inclusive population that shares a have sex with it." In fact, you don't react at common fertilisation system. all.But when you see a Koala that is a po Koala: Yes, that is veryinteresting. tential mate you experience a positive sex Baza: Don't tell me I have at last managed BITTEN ual reaction. You don't 'know' the species. to get something into your eucalyptus Koala: Well, if you put it that way... addled head? This is a moment to savour! Baza: I do and I rest my case. It is the ferti Koala: l do see. We should recognise BY THE lisation system that leads to positive, as species by recognising if they recognise sorted mating. themselves! Koala: You are being dramatic. I have Baza: I suppose so. always contended that our opinions did not Koala: Thus it is not what we think species BOOK differ. Your 'fertilisation system' functions are but what the species think they are. to isolate the differentspecies anyway. It is Baza: I give in. an isolating mechanism-your argument only quibbles about semantics. With that the Baza flewdown and ate the BUG? Baza: Have you ever been sexually at rainbow skinks. • tracted to cockatoos? Suggested Reading Coyne, J.A., Orr, H.A. & Futuyma, D.J., 1988. Do we Need a New Species Concept? "It is not what we think Syst.Zoo/. 37: 190-200. Paterson, H.E.H., 1985. The Recognition species ar.ebut what the Concept of Species.Pp. 21-29 in Species and Speciation, ed. by E.S. Vrba. Transvaal Museum species think theyare. " Monograph No. 4. Transvaal Museum: Pretoria. Paterson, H.E.H., 1988. On DefiningSpecies in Terms of Sterility: Problems and Alternatives. Pac. Sci. 42: 65-71. Koala: Your crudeness is not seeming. But Dr Ralph Mo/11aris Curator of Palaeo11tologyat the two can play this game. So what if I was at- Quee11sla11d Museum. His research has been di tracted to a cockatoo? Our species would reeled towardsftl/i11g the vast gap i11 knowledge of Australian vertebrate historybetwee11 the Devo11ia11 not be violated.We could not interbreed be- a11d Mioce11e. Dr Gle11Ingram is i11terestedi11 evol cause we do not have the necessary sec- ution and the philosophy of scie11ce. Jn 1987 he ondary sexual characteristics to success- received a special comme11datio11 from the BBC fully engage. It would be like trying to put a Wildlife Nature Writing Awards. square peg into a round hole. �------� Baza: You're disgusting!! Koala: Even so, it is a goodmetaphor for a pre-mating isolating mechanism. But, for the sake of the discussion, suppose the cockatooand I did manage it.Either fertilis AFRICA ation would not take place or, if it did, the The largest selection of luxury embryo would die; or if the embryo devel photographic safaris to Kenya, oped, it would be infertile and a 'mule'. Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana These post-mating isolating mechanisms and Seychelles is now available would ensure the integrity of our species. frvm Africa's largest family owned Baza: It wouldn't be a 'mule'; it would be a safari company. Call or writefor 'Cocky-Kola'! your copy of our 1989 Africa Koala: How dry. But the joke does portray color catalogue and video cassette. your preoccupation with words as your whole argument has been preoccupied with semantics. Baza: Our dispute has never been about semantics. Isolating mechanisms are silly notions. U you and a cockatoo recognised each other as mates, then you would be the same species. Further, that the repro ductive process goes awry after you mate For our interesting and informative would be especially irrelevant. Uthe 'integ books contact: rity' of species were dependent upon this Bookshop Manager failing, then there would be species all over WESTERN AUSTRALIAN the place sharing each other's fertilisation MUSEUM systems. But there aren't! Francis Street, Perth WA 6000 Koala: Now that is interesting. or Telephone (09) 328 4411 Baza: Even further, your Biological Con Wildlife Safari Pty Ltd cept defines species with respect to other 207 Murray Street Perth, WA 6000 species: species are groups that are 9 reproductively isolated from each other. (09) 322 5372 or (008) 98 558 Note-and this is very important-the Australia General Sales Agent m� Recognition Concept does not need umdpac Tours Pty Ltd(license 9TA00157) another species to define a species. To put it loosely, they are self-defining. They are V O L U M E 2 3 N U M 8 E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9 -90 257 been used where it is most cost effective, that is in paperboard for packaging and in moulded fibre products. Have a look at QUESTIONS the grey layers inside your cornflakesbox or egg cartons. Most domestic waste paper &ANSWERS recovered is not suitable for recycling into fine writing paper your our natural A regularcolumn where questionsabout as it usually contains a high pro- world are answeredby experts. portion of newsprint, which is questions. Readers are invitedto submit brief made from it. It is only recently L______'.:'.:�:.-=���=-:::.::.=.:.:.:.:..:...:...... ::_: ______An Ill Wind -:--�-7that sufficient high quality A Questionof Gender major greenhouse gas, but since waste has beenavailable in Aus- Do hermaphrodites, like If cows give off so much methane absorbs more ultra- slugs and snails, take turns • methane that it contributes tralia to produce higher grade Q • Q • violet energy than carbon diox- paper from 100 per cent t the male? s g ificantly to the greenhouse ide, the overall greenhouse _ef- -J. Meurer gases, why can't this gas be recycled fibre. Associated Pulp feet is reduced. (The absorption and Paper Mills makes recycled Townsv.,lle , Qld trapped and somehow converted tes the into a useful energy source?Surely o f UV energy crea paper (available in either 100 or greenhouse 'blanket' around No. Hermaphrodites such quantities would provide the • worldwith an enormousamount of the world that causes the global A • produce bothsperm and energy! temperatureincrease.) eggs. This means that during -M. Kenrick The logistics of trapping the copulation both partners are Glebe, NSW gas produced by cows make the fertilised, each acting as a fe likelihood of such a task ex male recipient and male 258 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY they do with it. It isn't always House (Melbourne); Raleigh sent for recycling into paper Paper Co. Pty Ltd (Sydney, products. Ask them whether it Melbourne, Brisbane); Riegel is useful to segregate the vari Paper Pty Ltd (Melbourne); ous types of office waste paper, Spicers Paper (Melbourne); such as printed matter, com Tomasetti Paper (Sydney, Mel puter paper etc., for final con bourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, version to different recycled Perth); and VRG Paper (Syd products. White paper has a ney,Melbourne). much higher value and better -F.D. properties for recycling,butthis may well dependon the quantity Why Whales? available, so if your office Why do the Japanese kill chums out large quantities of Q • almost 900 Minke Whales computer paper, check to see e c year for research? whether this can be collected -K. Rockwell separately. Northbridge, NSW Although about 760,000 tonnes of waste paper wasused • The Japanese have in Australia in 1987-88, the A • stated that they would amount of any one grade is very like to kill almost 900 Minke small indeed. In a country with a Whales for research in order, low populationdensity like Aus they say, to determine whether tralia there are two restrictions whale populations are rising or on the development of a wider falling. In the past year, how range of papers: one is the small ever, the whaling fleet only localmarket and the other is the managed to take 241 out of a limited supply of good quality target of 300 Minke Whales. waste available within a reason They claim that this does not able distance of the producing represent a reduced population mill. Perhaps better tactics of whales but instead is the re would be to encourage the use sult of bad weather and inter of recycled fibre in a wider ference from "Greenpeace range of products ratherthan to terrorists". October lst-January 7th ORGANISED IN NEW ZEALAND BY TI-fE NA llONAL MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND. try for toomany products made Minke Whales. MANAGED AND DESIGNED IN AUSTRALIA BY from 100 percent recycled ma TI-fE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM, SYDNEY. terial. After all, it doesn'treally In any study of any mammal matter where new fibre is re population,basic data must be placed by old, as long as it is re obtained from as many individ SPONSORED BY TI-fE placed as much as possible. uals as possible. Data includes IIBankof Newl.ealand Distributors in Australia of information on sex, age, length, recycled paper include the fol weight, condition, reproductive lowing companies: Boomerang status etc. To gather this infor CARRIED IN1ERNATIONALLY BY (!=a,r nEW ZEaLiJnD Trading Pty Ltd (Melbourne); mation from terrestrial mam Bowater Paper (Melbourne); mals involves capture, restraint, BRG Paper(Sydney); Common examination and then release. wealth Paper Company (Syd The procedure becomes ney, Melbourne, Brisbane, virtually impossible when deal INSURED BY TI-fE NEW SOUTI-f WALES GOVERNMENT Adelaide, Perth); Consolidated ing with animals the size of TI-fROUGH TI-fE TREASURY INSURANCE FUND. Paper Industries (Sydney, Mel Minke Whales and in a marine bourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, environment. This is probably Perth); Dalton Fine Paper (Mel why the Japanese claim it is bourne); Ecopaper (Sydney); necessary to kill a certain num australian Edwards Dunlop & B.J. Ball ber each year. (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, -Linda Gibson AustralianMuseum museum6-8 College St, Sydney 339 8111 Adelaide, Perth); The Paper V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 259 Encounters in Place: Outsiders and Aboriginal Australians 1606-1985 By D.J. Mulvaney, Universityof Queensland Press, St Lucia, REVIEWS Qld, 1989, 263 pp. $44.95. The Register of the National Estate is kept in Canberra by the Australian Heritage Com mission. Few Australians know of it, or what it is. Simply put, it is a list of places within Australia that are 'significant' for cultural, historic, social, scientific, en Cfut.rCes Darwin vironmental or other reasons. in Like most such activities car ried out by Commonwealth or AUSTRALIAf r.1v. 1rni J.M. Nkftofos States such a listing carries with it no legal protection places on the register are 'pro tected' for only as long as the governmentof the day desires. The Register, nonetheless, is a useful document, for it has now identified nearly 10,000 places that have been accepted by the Commission as appropri ate to preserve as 'our ' � �--... heritage'. Places that symbolise --�-� ...... 4 .. ...,..., ,,.,,,_,._·-,--� ...... �.. or exemplify interactions be tween Aborigines and other groups are clearly part of this, and Mulvaney' s book is about Charles Darwin in Australia of doubt about the duration of milieu in which the theory of 57 of them, most already on the By F. W and J.M. Nicholas. Earth's creation. His mind was natural selection emerged. Register, the rest, one assumes, Cambridge University Press, now turning more and more to Darwin's clerk, Syms Cov soon to be. Cambridge, 1989, 7 79 pp. the problem of the diversity and ington, emigrated to Australia, Encounters in Place consists $45.00. origin of species. On the even maintained a long correspon of 32 chapters, 3-13 pages ing of 19 January 1836, after a dence with his former employer Is this the ultimate Darwin long day's ride down into the and died, a publican and post in-Australia book? Probably not, Wolgan Valley, he returned to master, at Pambula in 1861. but it will certainly do for a long Wallerawang Homestead where Philip Gidley King Ounior) time to come. Frank and Jan he was a guest. Typically he still stayed on here to become man Nicholas have summarised all found time for a walk: along ager of Goonoo Goonoo Station that is now known about the Cox's River he spotted several and a pillar of the colonial estab great man's visit to this conti Platypuses and, resting on the lishment. He also continued to nent, reconstructing his move bank, watched a fly fall victim to correspond and gave tentative ments from day to day. Their an ant-lion. The authors argue, support to Origin of Species. detective work with meticu convincingly, that Darwin's ac The depressive and intensely lously detailed references, an count of this event in his Diary devout Captain Fitzroy, went on notations and footnotes, and a and the early edition of the to become a Tory member of thoughtful selection of contem Journal of the Beagle" . ..is one parliament, Governor of New porary illustrations and modem of the earliest glimpses we Zealand, and the founder of our photographs, will bring this im have, if not the earliest glimpse, modem weather prediction ser portant episode in the history of of the theory that he was to use vices. Weighed down by his hor biology to a wide audience. much later to explain the mech ror at the unwitting part he had each, about a specific place or Young Charles Darwin was anism of evolution". played in fostering Darwin's places.It starts in 1606 with the not overly impressed by Aus Alas, one would have to don heretical conclusions and, meetings between Cape York tralia. He arrived after four one's wetsuit to find this hal rather poignantly, " ...increas people and Willem Jansz, and years of collecting, travelling lowed spot, which was drowned ing sensitivity to criticism of the Torres Strait Islanders and Luis and improvisation on land and in 1979 when Cox's River was inevitable accuracies in his Vaes Torres; it ends with aboard the cramped HMS dammed to supply the Waller weather forecasts", he suicided "Uluru Retumed"-the 1985 Beagle. He was desperately awang Power Station. in April 1865. handing over of title deeds to homesick. The history of For my money, perhaps the Darwin in Australia man what was formerly Ayers Rock Darwinism might well have most enjoyable and moving part ages to be both an invaluable to the traditional owners. been different had the Beagle of Darwin in Australia was the reference work and a good read, Within these 380 years, Mul travelled in the opposite direc postscript, in which the sub and you can't do much better vaney ranges throughout Aus tion around the globe and ar sequent lives of Darwin's than that. tralia and a number of different rived in Australia first! closest shipmates are followed kinds of 'contact' places. For Darwin was also a personality through to their ends, a process -Gavin Gatenby each he gives a description of in transition. His early focus on that adds wonderfully to our NSW National Parksand the location, some idea of what geology had laid the foundations understanding of the social Wildlife Service can be seen there now, and an 260 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY essay on the events that make it neighbours. There are also a the dearth of publications about tory, on geology, hydrology and a significant contact place. few cases where, clearly for them, no explanation. This use hydrogeology, and on a number Interestingly, it is not always personal reasons, even a total ful compendium about Dal of the more important groups of these events that are the reason invasion of their land did not housie Springs is therefore a the biota (algae, macrophytes, for its inclusion in the Register. turnAborigines against particu most welcome addition to the molluscs, crustaceans, fish and Bernier and Dorre Islands, for lar invaders. It would be fasci literature in this area, and the mammals). All chapters are instance, are fossil sand dunes nating to know both sides of authors and editors deserve written by acknowledged ex off Shark Bay (WA), listed for such cases. But in this book Ab thanks and praise for their ef perts, many located outside their scientific and fauna!value. original accounts of the contacts forts. My concerns are that South Australia, so that the From 1908 to 1918 they were shine through clearly onlyin the their book may not be as easily book is a serious attempt to be also 'hospitals', one each forAb superb colour plates of rock accessible to limnologists both comprehensive and auth original women and men, who paintings. (wherever domiciled) as it oritative. were believed to be venereally The selection of places to ought, nor receive the publicity The book is not, of course, as diseased. Several hundred write about reflects some of it deserves. This review might the editors acknowledge, the Aborigines were collected, Mulvaney's own interests. The help alleviate the second con last word on the springs. It often by police without any four chapters on central Aus cern; with regard to the first, forms, however, a most com medical training, from all over tralia are long, not so firmly note that the book may be mendable starting point for fu Western Australia and sent anchored to particular places bought directly from the South ture studies. There is no doubt there, many of them to die. and revolve around the anthro Australian Museum or, of that Dalhousie Springs are of Most of the places Mulvaney pologist Baldwin Spencer, course, ordered through your major scientific importance, and records are the scenes of similar whose biographer Mulvaney is. favourite bookseller. the South Australian Govern encounters of exclusion and ex There is a good section on the Dalhousie Springs is an im ment is to be commended on its termination, although their graves of several Aboriginal pressive set of water bodies im wisdom in acquiring the area for nature changes somewhat with cricketers who starred in pounded behind calcareous public ownership. All that re time. In the early years of our matches in the late 19th cen mounds and fed by large vol mains is for the Government to invasion of any area of Australia tury. Nonetheless, the coverage umes of water that issue from accept the scientific recommen simple massacres were usual. is wide-ranging and Mulvaney the Great Australian Artesian dations put forward by the edi Moorundie (SA), Cape Grim clearly enjoyed visiting nearly Basin. Located at the western tors for the protection of the (Tas.), Cullinaringo (Qld) and all the places he writes about. edge of the Simpson Desert, springs and their scientific ex Pinjarra (WA) are examples of Finally, next time the media they occur in some of the most ploration. these. Once most of the Abor tells you of an Aboriginal 'riot' in arid landscapes found in Aus I thoroughly recommend this igines had been 'dispersed' (a Redfern (NSW) or a brawl at tralia: temperatures are ex book for purchase by librarians favoured 19th-century term: Brindleton (any State), think of treme with summer values of all institutions in Australia blacks killed by whites were Mulvaney' s book, for these are often over 40° C, rainfall arrives concerned with studies of the 'dispersed', whites killed by the 1980s "encounters in episodically (the mean annual Australian environment. This blacks were 'massacred' or place" in the making. rainfall is only about 13 centi book is not another superficial, 'murdered'!), later encounters -Peter White metres) and evaporation is in glossy piece of 'outback' Aus were more bureaucratic: mur University of Sydney tense (annual value exceeds traliana, but several cuts above der by long-term dispersal. three metres). There are some that literary genre; it is a seri Some of these were medically Natural Historyof ous addition to the literature on motivated, like the leprosarium Dalhousie Springs an important group of desert on Channel Island, near Darwin; W Zeidler and WF. Ponder. water. I hope it will catalyse others, like the Cootamundra South AustralianMuseum, further studies of both waters at Domestic Training Home for Adelaide, SA, 7 989, 7 38 pp. Dalhousie Springs and else Aboriginal Girls (NSW), were $79.95. where in the Australian desert. set up to force Aboriginal chil Australian students and scien dren into respectable working Limnology is the science of tists should have easy access to class jobs. These children were inland waters and conventional it. I am glad to see it on my forcibly removed from their limnological wisdom is largely bookshelf. families, nearly always for based upon studies of perma -W.D. Williams reasons that would never be nent fresh waters in the north University of Adelaide used against a white family ern temperate zone. This wis (until the 1980s, that is) and to dom would have us believe that put to work in the name of most water bodies in deserts Kakadu Country 'civilisation'. This legalised kid are small, ephemeral, populated By Peter Jarver. Thunderhead napping went on until-wait for by a depauperate biota with Photographies PtyLtd, Darwin, it-1957. Many of those chil good dispersal mechanisms and, NT, 7988, 779 pp. $34.95. dren are still alive. This encoun as a result, comprise wide ter is one of the saddest of all spread if not cosmopolitan I first stumbled across Peter and the house cannot tell it at species with large gene pools. 60 springs in the complex in a Jarver's photographs in a gal all. Increasingly, ideas of this sort zone of some 70 square kilo lery in East Sydney a few years Not all encounters between are being shown not to conform metres. The springs are per ago. The experience had an im Aborigines and non-Aborigines closely with reality. It is true haps some one to two million mediate and lasting effect on were so hostile or one-sided. that some desert water bodies years of age. me. So I was very glad to be able When people did not attempt conform to the preconceptions Not surprisingly, the springs to review his latest book large-scale takeovers of land, as of 'temperate' limnologists but are the focus of much Kakadu Country. with Macassan (Indonesian) tre it is equally true that many do archaeological, historical, geo It's no picnic lugging photo pang fishers in the Northern not. Certainly the various water logical and biological interest. graphic gear through rain Territory and the British settle bodies at Dalhousie Springs do This book attempts to highlight forests-a friend of mine got a ments at RafflesBay (NT), Port not, as this book clearly indi and document major features of herniadoing just that. But you'd Essington (NT) and Albany cates. such interest. In it, there are think Peter Jarver had spent (WA), Aboriginal people were The difficulty of studying des chapters on archaeology and half his life camped in the wil happy enough to have new ert waters needs no elaboration, Aboriginal and European his- dernesswith his camera gear at V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 261 Fiji's Natural Heritage rent political problems facing By Paddy Ryan. Southwestern that country are judged by him Publishing Co. Ltd, Auckland, mostly in terms of the impact of 7988, 784 pp. $30.00. corporate greed, personal am bition, racial disharmony and While this is a book that will community complacency on the fragile terrestrial and aquatic T R Y appeal to a wide audience, there N are two groups of people who ecosystems of this most beauti will especially benefit from its ful of countries. unique combination of skilled It behoves a reviewer to writing and superb photogra phy: those who have already spent time in Fiji and those who hope to do so. However no-one who dips into this book will fail to join the second group, even if already a member of the first! The soft cover of Fiji's Natu ral Heritage and its lavish coloured illustrations may cre ate an initial impression that it is just another mass-market tour make some cntlc1sms, and ist pot-boiler. True, the tourist those that follow are from the or casual browser will find the sections on reptiles and frogs, book entertaining and visually groups with which I am most delightful. But within its glossy familiar. For example, a few ty the ready. There is no weather trated around the Kakadu pages lies a wealth of hard infor pographic errors have crept condition or time of the day that National Park, Katherine Gorge mation about Fiji's ecosystems in (e.g. Engyrus instead of is not keenly observed and and Gurnig National Park. and biotas, with many gems for Enygrus, page 111). I was oc translated into outstanding im Peter explains in the text that the biologist, ecologist and bio casionally irked by the use of the ages by him. the areas he had photographed geographer. word "discovered" when the There is an obvious technical are under threat from the The book is divided into a author means 'named' or 'de excellence in his photography mining industry. There are so series of short 'chapters', scribed', and by the creation of and the observer is immediately few places left in Australia and mostly concerned with groups the misleading name Pacific Boa aware of his deep understanding the world that have not been of organisms of varying taxo Constrictors (implying a closer of his environment. Undoubt ravaged by some industry or nomic grades: from corals, affinity than intended with the edly the main feature of these other. Stronger control is worms, molluscs etc. to birds, true Boa Constrictor of tropical photographs is the drama and needed, National Parks must be mammals and plants. The treat America) for the phylogen surreal quality that the lighting protected at all costs, and areas ment is rounded off with a brief etically-distant Pacific boas conditions around this area pro outside the protection need a introduction, an 'overview' ( Candoia spp.) of the western duce. Whereas an artist has sensible conservation strategy. (which briefly but succinctly ad Pacific. The sea krait on page total control over his medium, a Peter Jarver's photography is dresses the issues of conser 114 is not identified to species photographer needs a fair in one sense a lasting record of vation and pollution), a section (it is the Pale-lipped Sea Krait, amount of endurance and luck this region, but a closer look re on 'places to visit', a too-short Laticauda colubrina). No men to achieve his interpretation of a veals what could be lost if we glossary, and finally a useful bib tion is made of the introduction scene. Yet these photographs don't take an active interest in liography and index. I could find of the Australian Green Tree are not just lucky snaps: they conserving this fragile and mag no significant errors about Frog (Litoria caerulea) of which are carefully planned endeav nificent environment. which, as a reviewer, I could I saw a wild-caught specimen ours. -Kate Lowe legitimately carp. from the vicinity of Suva in The photographs are concen- Australian Museum It will be obvious to the 1983. Has it become estab reader that I am a great admirer lished? of Paddy Ryan. Until recently a But these are niggling criti professional biologist and cisms of a splendid book whose teacher on the staff of the Uni special appeal finally lies in its versity of the South Pacific in quite superb photography. It is Suva, ·he is also a 'naturalist' in astonishing that one photogra the most honourable and tra pher (much less an author/ ditional sense of this oft photographer) could achieve maligned and much-denigrated such spectacular results and word. Combine this with a lucid consistent high quality across and entertaining writing style such a diverse range of subjects (caption: "Pteropus samoensis, and environments. This book the Samoan fruit bat, surveys may not be the definitive work the world from upside down, a on the natural history of the posture that changes rapidly Fijian islands but, more than any when it needs to defaecate!") other book published to date, it and we have a book that is a de presents a scholarly and visually light to read. None of the pon stimulating overview of the sub derous prose of the scientist ject, which will be welcomed here. equally by scientist, resident It will be equally obvious to and tourist. the readers of this book that -Hal Cogger Paddy Ryan loves Fiji. The cur- Australian Museum 262 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY species, for South Australia, central Australia, south-west ern Australia, Victoria (some australian what out of date), Tasmania (ditto), the Australian Capital Territory, most of New South museum Wales and south-eastern Queensland (one volume yet to be released), but nothing at all for the vast tropical belt of Aus For Specialist tralia. Brock's book will help fill that gap. Many of the plants he Natural History depicts occur also in northern Queensland and the Kimberley, Books and plant lovers in those regions will find his bookinvaluable. Top End Native Plants Especially helpful are the By John Brock. John Brock, notes on Aboriginal uses of the Winne/lie, NT, 7 988, 350 pp. plants. With the boom of inter $45.00. est in bush foods and medicines, this information, fully sourced, The Northern Territory is is most welcome. Many of the worlds removed from the pub medicinal plants have never lishing capitals of Sydney and been photographed before. Melbourne, and Top End My only gripe is with the writers often find it difficult to book's format. Brock lists the get their manuscripts published. plants in the alphabetic order of In response, some nature their scientific names. This ar writers have taken to publishing rangement has no biological their own books. The results basis and makes the book diffi have been superb. In 1986 Kym cult to use as a field guide. The Brennan brought out an excel plants should have been Order formfor lent field guide, Wild/lowers of grouped by growth form into Kakadu, and now John Brock herbs, vines, shrubs and trees, books including those has published Top End Native or perhaps into their respective reviewed in thisissue Plants. families. Brock's book is set to become Brock works for the North the standard reference on ern Territory Conservation plants of the Top End. In 350 Commission and his book has Quantity Title Price$ glossy pages he has described been sponsored by the North- Dispossession 17.95 The Uncertainty Principle 16.95 Australian Reptiles & Frogs 49.95 Charles Darwin in Australia 45.00 Encounters in Place 44.95 Natural History of Dalhousie Springs 19.95 Kakadu Country 34.95 Fiji's Natural Heritage 30.00 Top End Native Plants 45.00 Please add S6.00 for postage & handling 6.00 TOTAL $ and illustrated in colour 450 of The Scarlet Gum (Eucalyptus phoenicea) is one of the most out the more common, spectacular Please charge 10: and unusual of the plants found standing flowering eucalypts of the Top End. 0 llankcard D Mastercard D Visa D American Express around Darwin, Kakadu, Arn Card Number Expiry Date hemland and adjacent regions. I I The text is clear and concise, ern Territory Government. All ;s;arnc concerned should be congratu the format is intelligent, and the Address colour photos are sharp, aes lated for what is a splendid book. thetic and diagnostic. -nm Low Brock's book is the closest Signaturl' anyone has come to a Flora of northern Australia. The ab All books reviewed in Aus Post to: The Australian Museum Shop, tralian Natural History are sence of such a book is a major P.O. Box A285, Sydney South. NSW 2000. subject to fluctuations in 6-8 College St. Sydney. Phone: (02} 339 8150 irritant to botanists and price and overseas avail naturalists. There are complete ability. �nd a IC'ttt:r with theM' details 1f }'Ot:1 don't want to cut the magazine Floras, identifying all the plant V O L U M E 2 3 N U M B E R 3 , S U M M E R 1 9 8 9-90 263 THE LAST WORD Critics of the Convention, however, lack "It is hard to accept that the suspension confidence in the ability of the Commission members to translate CRAMRA's environ of the Minerals Convention is likely to mental good intentions into reality, triggeran 'unregulated scramble'. " particulary given the Treaty nations' unimpressive record to date. For example, the French government is blasting an airstrip at their Pointe Geologie Antarctic base, killingpenguins and thus vi ANTARCTICA: olating a key provision of one of the Treaty agreements.Yet no A TCP has beenwilling to insist the issue be formally discussed. WILDERNESS OR And while pennit regulations for Specially Protected Areas (SPAs), designated osten sibly to protect a region completely from human encroachment, were being finalised GOLDMINE? at the 1975 Treaty meeting, the Soviet Union and Chile were calmly building bases in the middle of the Fildes Peninsula SPA. BY LYN GOLDSWORTHY Instead of demanding a halt to the construc GREENPEACE tion, the Treaty nations redrew the bound �------1 aries of the SPA to accommodate the new HE FUTURE OF THE ANTARCTIC Interest in the potential mineral wealth constructions. continent as a breathtakingly beauti of the Antarctic arose in the early '70s Further, the Convention's apparently ful wilderness, scientific preserve when, in the context of the first major oil stringent 'Principles and Objectives' rely Tand internationalzone of peace is currently price shock, the International Deep Sea on undefined phrases such as "dam up for grabs as a number of nations prepare Drilling Project found ethane, normally age... judged... acceptable", and "signifi to ratify a Convention that will pennit suggestive of hydrocarbon deposits, in cant adverse effects", and are thus fraught mining activity in this last (relatively) un Ross Sea sediments. The Treaty nations with interpretative difficulties. touched region. Australia has a crucial role reasoned that a specifically designed agree The Convention establishes a Scientific, in deciding that future; on 22 May 1989, ment to cover mineral resource activity Technical and Environmental Advisory the Prime Minister announced that Aus was needed, as the absence of such would Committee (STEAC), which is required to tralia would not sign the Minerals Conven lead to an "unregulated scramble" that conduct technical and environmental tion but would instead actively seek the ur would threaten the survival of the existing assessments of proposed activities at most gent negotiation of a "comprehensive en arrangement. major decision-making points, and which vironmental protection convention". Three Negotiations, postponed for several may be invited to provide further advice on weeks later, the French Prime Minister years while the more urgent problem of an ad hoe basis. However, the Regulatory publicly committed his government to sup unregulated fishing activity in the Southern Committee, the institution that will con port the Australian stance. Ocean was first dealt with, beganin earnest sider specific licences, can ignore even the Several countries have already signed, in January 1982. Twelve long sessions unanimous advice of this Committee. including the USA, USSR and five other later, the Convention on the Regulation of Irrespective of the effectiveness or nations claiming territory in the Antarctic; Antarctic Mineral Resource Activity otherwise of the Convention's environmen signature, however, is only a voluntary (CRAMRA) was adopted in Wellington, tal provisions, environmentalists are op statement of commitment to the Conven New Zealand, on 2 June 1988 by the then posed to the Convention because they be tion. The legally binding ratification pro 20 Antarctic Treaty 'Consultative Parties' lieve minerals activity in itself is incompat cess starts after 25 November 1989 but (A TCPs), which on the basis of their ible with the survival of global values of only when 16 of the 20 nations that partici ongoing and substantial scientific effort on Antarctica, as a wilderness, scientific pre pated in the final negotiating session have the continent have granted themselves the serve and pollution monitoring zone. ratified. These 16 must include Australia, right to make decisions on Antarctic activi ATCPs have consistently insisted that France, both super-powers and a total of ties. extraction of Antarctic minerals will not five developing and 11 developed nations. The most contentious issues centred on take place for the forseeable future, not Only then will the Convention enter into who would reap the 'profits'. The Conven least because no exploitable mineral de force. The Australian and French stance tion had to balance the rights of the seven posits have yet been identified in against the Minerals Convention therefore nations, including Australia, that lay claim Antarctica. It is hard, therefore, to accept places the very existence of the new Con to sometimes overlapping sectors of the that the suspension of the Minerals Con vention in jeopardy. continent; developing world interests that vention, pending the negotiation of a Pro Activity in the Antarctic currently fo have identified the Antarctic as the 'com tection Convention, is likely to trigger an cuses on collaborative international scien mon heritage of mankind'; and mining "unregulated scramble", particulary in the tific research, as set forth under the Ant nations wanting to ensure an automatic and absence of investment, security and prop arctic Treaty, which was negotiated follow smoothpathway toward economically feas erty rights conferred by the Convention. ing the tremendous success of the 12- ible mining activity. In the context of concern about global nation International Geophysical Year The Convention prohibits exploration or warming and climate change, it would also scientific program in 1957-58. However, development activities unless the beshort-sighted and morally wrong to open while dealing admirably with scientific and institutions established under the Conven Antarctica to oil drilling. By the time it is logistic coordination, and foreseeing the tion give specific approval (prospecting ac economic to exploit the Antarctic's specu need for the development of regulatory tivity can occur without authorisation as lative reserve of fossil fuels, the world measures for marine living resources, the soon as the Convention enters into the should have substantially reduced its de Antarctic Treaty made no provision for force). The rules say that any Commission pendenceon them. • mineral resource management presumably member may veto the opening of an area if because, at the time of its negotiation in they are not satisfied that the environment Ms Ly11Goldsworthy is Directorof the illternatio11al 1959, it was inconceivable that mining ac will be adequately protected. Protection of E11viro11me11/a/ Coalitio11, A11tarctica11d Southenz tivity in the Antarctic would ever become a the environment is cited as "a basic con Ocea11 Coalitio11 a11d Co11s11//a11t to the Greenpeace reality. sideration" in all decisions. Antarctic Campaign. 264 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE MY FASCINATION FOR NATURE WITH SOMEONE ELSE. 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