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It's late. You turn out the the problem of extracting that sand from light and begin to drift into a blissful themselves and their belongings. But why sleep ... but you can't. Something is do we have such beautiful sand and where there, and it has found you, and now has it come from? Keith Sircombe decided it's time for it to feed. That rotten to search for the origins of the sand on #$%@*$# mosquito is driving you Australia's east-coast beaches ...and found completely insane and if you could the answer in Antarctica. S only just catch it you'd splatter its Birds are also big in this issue. Over two � buzzing little body all over the metres high and 300 kilograms big! Meet � bedroom wall. It's a scene repeated the thunder birds that ruled northern � again and again across Australia as Australia around 15 million years ago.Steve these insects hunt us down in order to extract a blood meal. Wroe asks, just what did these giant flightless birds eat? In And so we fight back. We spray them with chemicals, we Views From the Fourth Dimension, Mike Archer ponders spray our elves with chemicals, cover our beds with nets, about the owner of the perfectly preserved petrified bird burn pyrethrin candles, grow plants that repel them, place brain found at Riversleigh in Queensland. And Tamra screens over our windows-we've tried it all and still they bite Chapman puts the Glossy Black-Cockatoos of Kangaroo us. Why? Why do they need our blood and why do they prefer Island under the spotlight. This population is all that remains to feed on some people rather than others? Where are they of the South Australian Glossy Black and it is now under coming from and what diseases might they be infecting us threat. with when they bite us? Turn to page 38 and find out. Other stories in this issue include a warts-and-all expose of Once upon a time in the mountainous areas of south­ the Cane Toad, the rediscovery of Australia's only wingless eastern Australia, Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies were dung beetle, an alternative idea for keeping our river systems everywhere. Today they are so rare and elusive they have healthy, and why it's often impossible to tell whether been nicknamed The Shadow' and, if something is not done something's native or not. about it now, they will be lost forever. With this in mind, a Finally, we are proud to announce that Nature Australia group of scientists joined forces and began an innovative has been awarded the NSW Royal Zoological Society's 1999 cross-fostering program that involves putting baby brush-tails Whitley Award for Best Zoological Periodical. We would like into the pouches of other wallabies. to thank the Society for their recognition-we couldn't think Australia is known for its sandy beaches and just about of a better way to round off the millennium. every Australian at some time in their life has experienced -Jennifer Saunders

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NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 1 Articles

Nature26 NUMBER 7 SUMMER 1999-2000 VOLUME Published by the Australian Museum Trust 6 College Street, Sydney, NSW 2000. Phone: (02) 9320 6000 Fax: (02) 9320 6073 Web: http://www.austmus.gov.au President: Malcolm Long Trust r Museum Director: Michael A cher MANAGING EDITOR Jennifer Saunders, B.Sc. email: [email protected] SCIE TIFIC EDITOR Georgina Hickey, B.Sc. FUSSY BLACK­ email: [email protected] COCKATOOS PHOTO & EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Whenit comes to food Cl Kate Lowe CHILLYORIGINS FOR Black-Cockatoos are fuss/ssy email: [email protected] TROPICAL BEACHES They're fussy about what ihey at, how they DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Where does the sand on � eat it and where it omes Watch This! Design Australia's east-coast beaches � from. So how has all this fussiness PRINTING affectedthe come from? Antarctica may be struggling Excel Printing closer than you think. population on Kangaroo Island? ADVER TISING BY KEITH SIR COMBE Robbie Muller BY TAMRA CHAPMAN Phone: (02) 9320 6119 26 48 email: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS Robbie Muller Phone: (02) 9320 6119 Toll-free (1800) 028 558 Fax: (02) 9320 6073 email: [email protected]

Annual subscription (4 issues) Within Australia $A33 Other countries $A45 Two-year subscription (8 issues) Within Australia $A63 Other countries $A83 Three-year subscription (12 issues) Within Australia $A89 Other countries $A116 New subscriptionscan be made by credit card on the NATURE AUSTRALIA toll-free hotline (1800) 028 558 or use the form in this magazine. If it has been removed. send cheque, money order or credit card authorisation to the address above, made CHASING SHADOWS payable to the 'Australian Museum' in Australian currency. Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies are All material appearing i11 NATURE AUSTRALIA is copyright. bouncing back fromthe brink of Reproduction in part or whole is not Permitted without wn"tten authorisationfrom the Editor. NATURE AUSTRALIA welcomes extinction in the pouches of articles on the natural and cultural heritage of the Australian their foster mums. Region. Opinions expressed by the authors are their own and do BY DAVID TAGGART, JAMES not necessarily represent the policies or views of the Australian RESIDE & RAZ MARTIN Museum. All articlesin NATURE AUSTRALIA are peer-reviewed. NATURE AUSTRALIA is printed on archival quality paper 30 suitable for library collections. Published 1999 ISSN-1324-2598 MOSQUITOES If changing your socks, holding L? NATUREAUSTRALIA is proud winner BIRD FROM HEL your breath and staying in at THE tless . of the 1987, '88, '89, '90 , '91, '92, What would a giant fligh '93 & '99 Whitley night won't save you from these ' , Awards for Best with a half-metre-long ® Periodical, and the 1988 & '90 disease-carrying blood-suckers, bird es aild w muscl Australian Heritage Awards. what will? The more we know skull, massive ja the better protected we can be. brutish bill eat? STEPHEN WROE Front Cover BY RICHARD C. RUSSELL BY An adult male 38 56 Glossy Black-Cockatoo ( Ca/yptorhynchus latham,) feeds on the seeds of a sheoak cone. Photo by Tony Karacsonyi.

000 999-2 2 SUMM ER I NATURE AUSTRALIA W I L D THI NGS THE LAST WO R D King's Poo; Pyramids Mimic Regular Features Bird Calls; Alpha Males Make NATIVE OR NOT? THE RIVERKEEPERS the Earth Move; Rainy Exotic plants and animals have Australia's rivers are our most Weekends; Opposites Attract; been entering Australia for so precious resource, yet the Bee's Swan Sting; Spider Silk many years that it's now responsibility for their Production Line?; Indonesian difficult to tell what's native protection often falls through Coelacanth; Quick Quiz. and what's not. the holes of various BY TIM LOW bureaucracies. But there may 8 be a better solution. 24 REVIEWS BY JOHN CHRISTOPHER Aquatic and Wetland Plants; GAZECKl Saving the Environment; The 80 Evolution Revolution; Secrets of the Ocean Realm; Burning Questions. 72

THE BACKYARD NAT URALIST HAVE WARTS ... WILL TRAVEL Toxic, unstoppable, eats any­ thing, breeds profusely and has no known enemies ... meet the Cane Toad, one of Australia's more notable ecological disasters. PH OTOART BY STEVE VAN DYCK 20 THE ART OF ROCKS LETTERS SOCIETY PA GE Explore the beauty that can be Anthropomorphism; Guyon Interested in nature but not found in a perfectly placed rock Guyon Paintings; jumping sure what to do or where to go ? formation. Species; Pollen-eating Spiders; Nature Australia's Society Page BY NATURE FOCUS Tsunami Backfire?; UVEyes; is a great place to start. Conservation Myths; Human 64 Nature; Congratulations; 74 Ambergris; Easter Bilby VIEWS FRO M THE FO URTHDIMEN SION Origins; Geclw Guff; Conservation Through THE GUIDE BRAIN OF THE DEMON Knowledge, or Not? Nature Australia's market DUCK OF DOOM place. Riversleigh has yielded yet 4 another spectacular fossil-a 76 petrified brain so perfectly preserved that its blood vessels Q&A stand out in proud relief But Frog Find; Dinosaur Bones; just what kind of animal did Only Skin Deep; Long Webs; this brain service? Pie Teaser. BY MICHAEL ARCHER 78 70

RAR E & ENDANGE R ED WINGLESS DUNG BEETLE In the depths of the Paris Museum's insect collection lay the NATURE STRIPS first Wingless Dung Beetle 'Fairy' Penguins; Penguin ever collected in Australia. Prostitutes; Mitey Dinosaurs?; Over 100 years later it was Bear Spray; Aye-ayes loolz for a rediscovered in a pitfall trap in Break; Crabs with Balls; Queensland. Debunlzing the Barbie Myth; BY GEOFF MONTEITH The Way to a Whale; Burnt 22 Offerings for Big Bird?; The 3 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 how that f II Walsh a G_r says th� . ahalll loo be 1 Paintin g e LETTERS aut·fi u to Sare for readers to do�� by h ave The forum my Peo Ie . bee their wntmg to � I all) air their views about the al; Man to m Tu and let hi knui cke; concerns, past articles The � ' re are still o ' events. around l . interesting personal today who d P eople you what can the thin s ten I people see g �ret h in the Pain ta like. what th ey tings > t wea r r hmgs .like that and, pie f om the East'. My people Th e�e Anthropomorphism females tend to 'choose' words for everyth· are and that lived along the north coast of painting g in the ome extent I agree older, wealthy males s in my 1�� , To young, the Kimberley as well as would be guage_ I Dean Portelli's objec­ human males 'prefer' glad if with Nature Aust. females. In inland as far as Wyndham in pass this info Ji�could I tions (Letters, well-proportioned rmati n they aren't con­ the east, and Kalumburu in to the anthropo­ most cases -Ambrose 1.l l Winter 1999) the west. My country is along Chala. ll!ri , of animal sciously looking ahead to Willetto morphic tJ·eatment the King George River. My n,WA in my article on future generations, but their behaviour people have been living in Jumpin in Peregrine Fal­ genes sure are! If words like g Specie parenting that country for a long, long A he said, it is com­ 'decide' and 'choose' ade­ Much as I was im r s cons. time, and the rock paintings ?Y e mon practice and scientifical­ quately describe such behav­ Bri�n Cooke's e:Co :::d 1 it iour in humans, then they are that the white people call mg_ �r!1cle on the ly unsound. Nevertheless, spread g.of so often simply just as applicable to animals. Bradshaws belong to the cahc1v1rus and the i is done -Penny Olsen . co nse- because it is the mostapt and Aboriginal people, because quentd ec1m. ation of the E Australian National University ur compelling way to describe our ancestors put them there. pean R�bbit popul atio: accompanied behaviour, and it is done in Paddy Neowarra and oth­ by a re ur­ the belief that the average Guyon Guyon ers made a big effort to gence of our native flora Paintings (Nature Aust. and reader will understand its change the name by calling fauna Autumn. limitations. We cannot help I have read with great inter­ them Guyon Guyon paint­ 1999): I was rather urprised but view the universe from a est an article entitled "Magi­ ings, meaning the old people at his ea y dismissal o!) 'species human perspective. I believe cal Paintings of the Kimber­(Nature from long ago, and the paint­ jumping' with refer­ ley" by Paul Tac;on ings should be called that ence to this virus. it is human arrogance that Aust. I gather asserts, as Portelli does, that Summer 1998-99). The from now on. We don't like to that not a lot of research has animal behaviour is instinc­ article discusses the origins hear them called by a white been done in this area but tive, not learned, and, by of a kind of rock painting man's name, who didn't even inference, that human behav­ until now wrongly referred to believe they are our paint­ A male Peregrine Falcon (Falco iour is rational and indepen­ as the 'Bradshaw paintings'. ings. I have been writing sto­ peregrinus) with its prey-a dent of instinct. There is I am an Elder of the Kwini ries and I have written a story Green Rosella (Platycercus ample evidence that human tribe. Kwini means 'the peo- about the paintings. It is bad caledonicus).

oo 4 9-2 o MER J 99 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUM m to be trong evi­ do: re -ee -supple�1enting carc that viral 'species jump­ a�imal e ee lJV light. extensive T�ce e v Pr?t�111 with pla than that of humans . and doe occur. H r tem. nt pro­ A imilar Lory appeared These . n · can But it_1 still only a up­ on papers. and there are i � s to mind as almost cer­ p_leme�t. Ea _Lem Ro l\as in vour many, are cited in the two kel' 1 ng Birch pollen i defi­ pnng having 'jump�d' to c,�nt 111 th_e 1991 is ue. As I point­ papers we 1< ere summarising rinly r e ential amino ed out f om other pnmate . ac!d ty_ros11 (Winter 1992). bird (for which /111/ reference details human 1e. Without this �nay er home, the recent p1derlm� or may not be able to ee are provided). ear cannot form a 111 to h_umans of t:1:e new the lJV, but the colour we I agree with Zola 's sugges­ 'jumping'_ cuticle and therefore see e ]oiler v1ru (EMV) m ca�not moult. w!th human eyes when tion of a /111/ article exploring equin Like all young we sh111e UV Q ensland an? its probable animals, they must light on a bird birds 'seeing in the UV'. but in ue eat animal ca�not po sibly tell the x.i tence also 111 flymg-foxe protein. us any­ meantime I suggest Zola e th111g about what a bird sees. and other interested e one pause. One recalls -Tom White readers giv Certain sub lances fluo­ consult the references quoted too the recent 'mad cow' epi­ University of Adelaide resce-they absorb light at in the key papers. After all. demic in Britain. (B E virus) Tsunami one wavelength and re-emit it that is why references a re with its economic a well as Backfire? at a higher ns. I wavelength. Thus included in the at11re Strips pathological implicatio I w�s recently reading a lJV light can to say then back Nature be emitted as section-so that people can fol­ would venture issue of Aus­ visible (to us) light. low up their 'species jumping' tralia (Summer As the own research if that viral 1998-99) and author of the article point they wish to. have drastic conse­ came across a Letter can titled out, human eyes do not 'see' -Leo Joseph for humans. 'Tsunami Hype" by quences Eric Van­ UV, so what the observers Academy of Natural Sciences, -Anne Drover derduys. Vanderduys starts are seeing is fluorescence. Philadelphia Wollstonecraft, NSW out by saying that he "loved That tells them that there are the picture of Michael fluorescent r pigments on the Conservation Pollen-eating Archer's 'one-i.n-600-yea wave' bird; it tells them nothing Myths Spiders about to dump a million about what the bird sees. Mark Elgar' "Conserva­ I do not know what nutri­ tonnes of water onto what Certain red seaweeds con­ tion Myths" (Nature Aust. tional benefit Eleanor Sto­ appears to be a prize home in tain substances, phycobilipro­ Spring 1998) contain myths dart's jumping pider might the Gold Coast hinterland" teins, that emit bright r red other than the ones intended. have gained f om eating cake and cannot "suppress the light when irradiated with a Myth no. 1: genetics cannot (Nature Aust. Autumn 1999), harmless pedant that lives blue laser. What does that tell have immediate effects on but I do know of one example within", and then goes on to us about the role of lasers in demography. Inbreeding de­ of orb-weaving spiders bene­ explain the inaccuracies with seaweed society? Absolutely pres ion Ooss of individual fiting by becoming partial the idea that tsunamis can nothing, although I could survivorship and fertility herbivore . "tower above the surface of make up a good fantasy. through inbreeding) is well Orb-weaving spiderlings the ocean". My complaint is Birds may well have UV­ researched and has rapid survive the first instar on that the picture does not sensitive photoreceptors. I consequences for popula­ their reserve of egg yolk. depict a tsunami towering would imagine it would be tions. Only after they have moulted above the middle of the ocean very easy to design an exper­ Myth no. 2: mortality such­ to the second instar do they (as he goes into great detail iment to find out, if it has not as predation on Cheetah cubs. spin a web. Then, however, to discredit) but towers over a already been clone. But shin­ cannot be influenced by they face a relative shortage house on the coast (the exact ing UV light on them and genetics. To evolve, predator of food (few of the many situation he claims occurs as looking at them with (UV­ susceptibility mu t have a small insects in their environ­ the wave hits the shore). If blind) human eyes is certain­ genetic component. There ment actually come in contact the picture was of a towering ly not the way to find out. are good example in the lit­ with their webs, and even tsunami about to hit an ocean Can Nature Australia get erature of genetic precli po i­ fewer are small enough to be liner in the middle of the someone who knows about tion to pr elation pre sure. would captured), which soon proves ocean, then I could see his avian vision and understands More generally, few fatal for most it's not. Eric the experimental method to doubt that many di eases and of them. argument-but genetic ori­ In 1984, Risa Smith and totally contradicts him­ comment on whether birds weaknesses have thus that predators oflen Thomas Mommsen conduct­ self. can see UV light, and sum­ gins, and target the weak. Eldridge's ed experiments to see how -Tom Richards maiise the evidence c1itically? Zola work (ciled by Elgar) pro­ spiclerlings fared on a diet Brisbane, Qld -Heddy of (Science Seacliff, SA vides a simple example: pollen 226: on Barrow 1330-13 Jn Vanderduy's original Let­ inbred Euros 32). Second-instar sci­ are ana mic and col­ spiderlings ter he writes "My criticism is A peril in summarising Island were allowed to papers for the Nature lap e on being chased. pin their first webs not with the picture but with entific in indi­ Strips section is that some Myth no. 3: urvival of vidual closed cages. Some of the idea that tsunamis can face of the details must inevitably be left some inbred populations them were tarved the webs 'tower above the sur does he is quoting out. Zola has pointed out that, means that inbreeding of other were d�sted with ocean'." Here (perhaps e extinction. "Grandad birch text, and so he is quite in concentrating not cau pollen. Those with Archer's the ecology nd smoked 30 a day and lived to polle in pointing out the error. unduly) on q, n to eat had double the right history of the sub;ect, 80, so smoking doesn't con­ life expectancy -G.H. natural of the starved we omitted references to the tribute to cancer." Analysis of �nes. Third-in tar spider­ the basis for all the available evidence l1 papers that give 11g , rai eel on a diet of UV Eyes? can be supposed to show that genetic factors aphi UV Eyes" why UV d , were also given the "A Sight for a role in avian ecology. cannot be di counted. am� A�t�mn 1999) have treatment (pollen or ( ature Strips, Those papers illustra�e not Myth no. 4: there is little nothi�g) and again, those on revi its an old m1 111terpreta­ can indeed evidence that genetic factors the only that birds diet of pollen lived twice tion. The item reports t�at UV wavelengths, but affect extinction. Th re is a a lon Tits detect _ g. male and female Blue they also discuss the anatomi­ wealth of relevant experimen­ The e young carnivores show colour differences basis for arguing that the tal data in major cientilic are under UV cal doing the rever e of what when examined visual world of birds is more journal . Saccheri and col- 0 many young herbivore light, and concludes that they

5 ATU RE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 - present�tion that Malcolm Turner, a for­ through Nature, 1998) on the excellent the eco leagues (in range of topics. I mer President of the HJFNC, National L : rds of th of experi­ of a diverse ibr r o i showed, in the sort enjoy Steve Van may have invented the Easter N o e_d iti" · o Y f A st d by Elgar, particularly n Prior U ra\i� ment demande _',:he Back­ Bilby idea and first put it into 199 is rec to tha f�ctor� c?n­ Dyck's regula1: 7 orded . t Of that genetic Natur�hst_ colu1�111. practice at an annual Easter H.i s furth 111 wild­ yard r er cl ai· m · tribute to extinctions mforn:iat!ve, camp of the junior nats in the b as ma th t Does th Apart f om bemg d� and sold a Mei living butterflies. � style 1s Just Little Desert in 1976. Instead �as" ter B ch oco\ ,,, ove1 his witty writing . 1lbies be( 11 . a point have to be prov�n . get a of the kids (and their parents) � S cu ore hs: . 1s noth­ delightful and I always a nous attack . 11a1g 1 and over, until there ' visions his getting the 'good rabbit' mform ' since th 1 ve? chuckle out of the , ation ·1s d w at ina left to conser con­ chocolate message on Easter RF s ra genetic data creative turn of phrase f:,. own public n fro111i Myth no. 5: morning, they were privi­ cunou it . to conser­ jures up! sly' he ign or y More cannot contribute -Vicki Bressan leged to take part in the early pro duce d e.s th 051: There is a range of even ea r1 vation. Southport, Qld development of this new cul­ �·1ss1o · ned 1er' coll\- tant inforn:iation in con­ by RFA f r impor tural icon, one that fitted mdepende om an' plann111g that can nt man c servation much better to the aims and and widely g t r be contributed solely by Ambergris . reco �� u �r. I On a recent late-night radio sympathies of young natural­ media reports o /d in genetic analysis. Perhaps f the i me a moder_n quiz show, the question ists. Malcolm, it should be the "first chocolate \ most importantly, noted, is quite prepared to Ea st erBif assessment 1s "What is ambergris?" was hies". biodiversity by at countenance competing Hunw on genetics. A:1 asked. It was passed . ick states that dependent before claims. sm�e, e er, easily understood example 1s least eight contestants Melbas, from th� � the The issues of priority are o� its s the uncovering of large num­ someone stumbled on products, "have � t\ ' me to important when one group �nbute o of 'cryptic species , answer. It prompted cl _P�oceeds to t sa:: 1 bers with particular interests and he which are very different pen the following ditty. I plead mg of B1lb1es ...wit ho objectives claims ownership ut r 1 . although they look similar: if poetic licence for using erence. to ARRFA" a damea .; and legal control of a concept mg ' g. we do not know what is there, "prawn" when I know Sperm an d untrue claim sine in order to obtain benefits �A we certainly cannot protect it. Whales eat squid. supplies our trademark Ambergris! from its commercial use. stickers There is not room here to Ambergris! to Melbas for theSt What in the world is that? However it is important that products do justice to the case that , Melbas returni genetic factors are important Is it a rejection from a we attempt to gain a better royalties to RFA from the� cachalot slightly over fat? understanding of the origin, sales and was in endangerment, and that last ye ar awar� > molecular genetics has a lot Its gastric system shaken by development and popularisa­ eel RFA' s rarely bestowed to offer conservation biology. excessive meals of prawn, tion of this idea and a keener Certificate of Appreciation for I hope I have cast doubt on Resulting in a tummy ache appreciation of its utility doing so. the bleak view presented by and a technicolour yawn. while the idea and its mani­ Such attacks on a national Elgar. Most population A floating mass of rubbish festations are still young.The conservation body may mys­ geneticists are well-motivated polluting the salty air, gradual winning of symbolic tify your readers. In short, fo\ conservationists and intelli­ To be rendered into perfume to and iconic significance and lowing RFA's succes sful cre­ gent scientists who recognise grace my lady fair. influence by the Easter Bilby ation of the Easter Bilby asa that an interdisciplinary -Bill Yates provides a beautiful object fund-raising trademark, oth-, approach to conservation is Kandos, NSW lesson on the types of actions ers tried to divert royalties most likely to be successful. and changes that are neces­ arising from it for their 01111 We should support and Easter Bilby sary to enculturate our natur­ ends. RFA's legal procedures encourage this view. Origins al environment and so protect stopped this, but some on the -Paul Sunnucks The Anti-Rabbit Research it. However, the hard-won receiving end of them still try. Monash University Foundation of Australia gain of such exercises have to muddy the historical (ARRFA) may control the not been enough to stem the waters. Human Nature trademark 'Easter Bilby' tide of destruction. Can Fortunately the watm I was perplexed by the (Nature Aust. Spring 1998), strategies, practices and remain clear, and the author views displayed by Allen E. but as John Hunwick pointed methods be adopted that will of Billy the Aussie East�r Bi/� Greer that "the less human out (Nature Aust. Winter motivate the origination and is not among the culprits.\le influence there k is, the more 1999), the ARRFA did not propagation of a large swarm promote Dusting'.s b�? • natural the s; outcome" (Last originate the concept, which of such concepts to counter which includes lavish piru Word, Nature Aust. nser· Autumn was developed and popu­ the Mickey Mouses and Bugs Of RFA's research and co 1999). I prefer is· e to to believe that larised some years earlier. Bunnies of the world and help Vati·on work and a prom humans, for better • · ili e or for Hunwick mentions Rose­ us to live better with nature? forward royalties from worse, are an intrinsic ese part of Marie Dusting's 1979 book -Ian Faithful book's sales to Rf ATh the natural environment and Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby, delivered, ·i unavoidably _ Carrum Downs, Vic. have been J play their part­ possibly the first since its first pu '' some '!light published promised, argue too great a reference.The Easter Bilby Nature Australia in 199 . . part-111 natural is In (Win­ cation 7 . Mornson ! selection and referred to on several -Robert G.B . evolution. r occa­ ter 1999), John Hunwick dis­ . F AusJraha sions f om 1984 onwards Foundation for Rabbit- ree -Neil Willetts in putes that the Easter Bilby �he Junior Naturalist, pub Lindfield, NSW ­ was the 1991 creation of the lished by the Hawthorn Anti-Rabbit Research Foun­ Gecko Guff . Junior have p babll' Congratulations Field Naturalists Club dation of Australia, now the By now you 1,?wood (HJFNC) in Melbourne. that the �s a relatively This Foundation for Rabbit-Free been told f the ' new sub­ documentation, along with on pag·e 50. ° sc1:1ber to Nature Australia Australia (RFA), stating that G ec I " <0 . . 111 facta ) I other material and is �nte to express the memo­ he possesses a book Billy the Winter 1999 issue ta1·oli' . my admira­ ries of former members 1 mos t cer tion f�r the quality of Aussie Easter Bilby, first pub­ velvet gecko, a (Oedt1· of your the Club, sugge t that the Robust Velvet Gecko magazi�e. The photographs lished in 1979. a r tjcle is idea had currency even earli ra robusta). That and articles are superb, ­ I have the same book. It . . · g· �in sa) ring and �r. My research (to be pub­ a bit 1111s1 ea dm you are to be congratulated was actually first published in also et Gecko lished elsewhere) indicates 1997, a fact easily verified that Lesueur's Velv

6 -2000 19 99 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER is probably the most common when so many species are "stupid experiment" on lizard The planet is experiencing gecko on the coast of New lost every day? colours suggest a lack of under­ human-generated collapse of South Wales when in fact its As a naturalist, it is a worry standing of the relationship the world's biodiversity. coastal distribution only goes to see 'fluffy' articles with between 'pure'and 'applied (in The important battles in from about Wollongong to pretty pictures (great photog­ this case conservation) sci­ conservation today are not on Newcastle (it extends inland raphy) and little substance, ence' in our society. the endangered species lists, to southern Queensland). while environmental scien­ Decisions about how mod­ but are in the hearts and The Broad-headed Snake is tists sit and watch threatened ern societies choose, legally minds of people whose actions coniined to this small coastal species' remaining habitat and economically, to interact wilt chart the course for what region and far�1er no!·th the get destroyed. There isn't with the natural world, depend kinds of conservation values aecko ha enbrely different that much left after 200 years on human values. Concerning we will practise in the future. predatory snakes to contend and there is going to be a lot nature, we tend to value high­ Every piece of our planet that with. le s tomorrow. It is a shame ly what we know, what we we currently use for crops, P.S. I thought Steve Van scientists don't seem to come understand, and what we find buildings and car parks was Dyck's article on earthworms out of the clo et about the to be intrinsically beautiful. previously the home of an was very funny. serious environmental crisis We only fight and sacrifice for evolved community of natural -nm Low our country is facing at the things and ideas we deeply organisms. You and I have Chapel Hill, Qld moment. understand and truly care choices to make as the future I do wish to thank Mark about. engulfs us. Choices are based Conservation Elgar on his article "Conser­ If I had an evening around a on values. I value lizards with through vation Myths", for some infor­ campfire with Mr Taylor, I am blue bellies, and I sense that Knowledge, or mative journalism. The arti­ sure I could convince him that Mr Taylor and others could Not? cles by Paul Jepson (''Yellow­ I have long been "out of the too. So, I research and write. Wade Sherbrooke's article crested Cockatoo") and Tom closet" on environmental con­ -Wade Sherbrooke on Tree Lizards and the tem­ Heinsohn ("Captive Ecolo­ cerns, as almost all biologists American Museum of Natural History perature needed for the gy") were also excellent. are. Hopefully he would see change of belly colour 'Conservation through that bringing people's perspec­ NATURE AUSTRALIA welcomes letters for publication and (Nature Aust. Spring 1998) knowledge' is an expression tives around to appreciating requests that they be limited to was a horrible example of adopted by Birds Australia, the finesse of a lizard's belly­ 250 words and typed if possible. 'stupid experiments'. Placing but is this really the case? colour changes can contribute Please supply a daytime tele­ And if not, what is? I wish to to their understanding and phone number and type or print lizards into a glass case with your name and address clearly on little room to move and know. appreciation of nature, and the letter. The best letter in this watching their bellies turn -Bruce Taylor thus to the development of pos­ issue will receive a copy of Tam­ blue-how will this protect Armidale, NSW itive values toward the conser­ ing the great south land from the vation of nature. The crisis he Museum Shop. The winner this the species? Isn't there more issue is Ambrose Chalarimeri. crucial research needed Taylor's comments on my is concerned about is very real.

A clear v· iew o f the misidentified Robust Velvet Gecko.

7 NATURE AU STRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 ;; ductive tract), th e au ho suggest, tongue in � rs that e male penguins ar� �k. ply following · 1 the pr c� 111· that practice makes in ip]e , Nature per fect. -A.T_ I Penguin Strips Prostitutes nd if ho COMPILED BY . mosexual e � gums weren't enoi h. GEORGINA HICKEY howA about i . penguins tta prostitute- themselv i es?· Ade 1.1 P engums on Ross e Island hav e prov1"d ed us with anothe r to each other-a precursor the reproductive tract. first-the first time that I �Fairy' One male lay Obviously there can be no monogamous bird sp to copulation. ecie� 1 Penguins? down on a nest, and the other adaptive value associated has be�n cau�ht having mountings, so extramarital sex uring a routine visit lo mounted him. The first male with same-sex m return for , do it? atena. 1 . 1ten�s. DAntarctic Ross Island, arched his head and bill why did these Adelies � _ The currency, courtship behaviour upwards and raised his tail, Davis and colleagues note m this case, 1s stones. to study Fiona in Adelie Penguins (Pygoscelis while the other walked up that, during the relatively Hunter from the Uni­ adeliae), researchers came and down his back, vibrating short (four-week) breeding versity of Cambridge (UK) r across an extraordinary his bill against the other's season, a male penguin's and Li?yd Davis (as in 'fairy'. sight: two male Adelies mat­ bill-all standard courtship testosterone levels can shoot pengum fame; see above) wit­ ing. Not only is this the first procedure. up to 40 times that of normal nessed paired females so licit­ time that homosexual mating The two then swapped levels. It may be that surging ing sex with unpaired male has been observed in pen­ positions, and went through hormones create an over­ Immediately after copulation· guins, but the first time for the same mating behaviour whelming urge to mate, the female picked up one of any bird species that a homo­ again. The birds brought whether or not there are his nest stones and carried it sexual pair was seen swap­ their cloacas into contact and females present. Alternative­ back to her own nest. Some ping positions. the top penguin was seen to ly, for birds that don't have a females went through the As Lloyd Davis (University ejaculate. In response, the great track record when it courtship ritual, then up and 1 of Otago in New Zealand) other contracted his cloaca in comes to mating (two-thirds left, with stone in beak, and colleagues describe, the the same manner females do of all couplings fail to deposit before the male had a chance 1 two penguins bowed deeply to help draw up semen into sperm in the female's repro- to mount her. Some returned

Homose xuals, prostltu tes · · · Adelle Penguins have it all. 8 OO NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-zo Red pepper spray used as a Brown repellent may actually have 1 Bear ' the opposite effect.

again and again, with one bird procuring a total of 62 stones within an hour. But what's so special about stones? Adelie Penguins use them to form a raised plat­ form on which they lay their two eggs. This way, when the ice melts in spring, the nest is not inundated. And why are unpaired males so tolerant of these females' pebble-pinching ways, especially when they don't always get what they paid for? Hunter and Davis believe the males live in hope that they may eventually get to father an offspring, or, per­ haps, that the female will return to settle down. -G.H. Mitey Dinosaurs? c,arasites have always r been a large and impor­ tant, if slightly unsavoury, component of biodiversity. Signs of parasitic infection appear over 550 million years ago as lesions on trilobites. It seems that almost as soon as animals became large enough to become infected, parasites evolved to hitch a free ride. Birds can be attacked by a wide range of specialised par­ asites, including feather mites, which feed, mate and lay their eggs in the plumage. However, the fossil record of feather mites, as of most par­ asites, is very poor, and it was uncertain whether they evolved soon after feathers appeared over 140 million years ago. Thus when Briti�h palaeontologists Dave Martill and Paul Davis from the_ University of Portsmouth evolved in dinosaurs such as Bear Spray actually has the opposite noticed small spherical struc­ the appropriately named effect. tures on a 120-million-year­ Protarchaeopteryx, and were ed pepper or capsicum Tom Smith of the US Geo­ ?1d feather �hey were study­ passed on to their avian Rspray is sold commer­ logical Survey watched the !ng, �he� quickly realised the descendants. The ancient age cially in the United States as a response of Brown Bears implications. The tiny struc­ of feather-borne parasites defence against aggressive (Ursus arctos) to red pepper tu:es w�re the eggs of feather means that they probably bears. Sprayed directly into a spray residues, at test sites in rites, implying that feather- evolved early enough to bear's face, it produces a Alaska's Katmai National orne parasite are almost infect dinosaur plumage as painful burning sensation, Park. He found that most of old as as feathers themselves. well. Thus, it is likely that temporarily disabling the ani­ the bears were interested in . Sp_ectacular fossil discover­ birds inherited from their mal. Campers have also been the smell-sniffing, pawing, ies i n eh·ma have not using the irritant spray as if it rubbing or rolling in it-and d recently dinosaurian ancestors emonSlrated that also a host were a repellent, spraying in no case were bears repelled ere feathers only feathers, but ; pr�sent on the small (pun intended) of associated objects and camp sites to from a ti·eatment site. This eat-eatmg theropod ward off bears. However, a indicates that the use of red saur dino- parasites. s ancestral to -Michael Lee recent study has shown that pepper spray around camp F eat h er birds s th erefore first University of Queensland using the spray in this way sites may be dangerous NAT URE AUSTR ALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 9 Wood- tapping Aye - ayes h 0 on the sound rne in of a sub s crack. urface

t �ies W filled' the Aye e ere, -ay s . scra.t c h ed away at e st11i , gestmg th that it isn't rn, sug. from empt echoe1 y spaces to W , they respond. hich 1 And no r they seem to e dc1 . r cogn ch anges m density w ' ise , ithin the wood because it didn't what the cavities e e we rnirt edr / with (metal, wood 0; fo l the 1 Aye-ayes still scrat:)d away regardless. Only wh!n I wooden plugs were act I glu�d into pl�ce, thus e��t I na�ng any vibr ation at the' cavity boun e d�ry, did Ay -ayes lose interest m the block It seems that these· Pri­ �ates respond to the change, �n sound that occurs at the 1 mterface between the woO

Crabs with Balls ale fiddler crabs (Uco' M spp.) are famous for having one huge claw (som� bigger than their times to body), which they wave as it would make the area which campers frequently do wood and prises the grubs deter more inviting to curious near camp sites. out with its long digits. attract females and -P.R. rivals. But claw-wav· bears. Research has confirmed would-be ttire ing is only part of the pi� Since Brown Bears rely that the Aye-aye tracks down inter· most heavily on smell to its larval prey by following of sexual rivalry in the crabs, as locate food in their environ­ acoustic signals that bounce tidal world of fiddler e Aye-ayes Look r S_up th ment, it is not surprising that back not so much f om the Rui Oliveira (Instituto for a Break Aphca d_a. pungent and novel scents are insects themselves but from or de Psicologia · co IIeague s dis attractive. Indeed, as a gener­ ood-boring larvae of the wood cavities in which Portugal) and d t Nature Aust. when they looke ' al safety precaution, visitors Wmoths and beetles are they dwell (see covered Ftd · to bear country are encour­ Spring 1992). A recent study mud-balling in European among the favourite(Daubentonia foods of (Uca tangen). aged to rid camp sites of all the Aye-aye led by Carl Erickson, of dler Crabs 'Id madagascariensis), fiddler crabs btU strongly scented articles, an endan­ North Carolina's Duke Uni­ Many t ur e:,, versity, attempted to clarify mud or sand struc including toothpaste, soap gered primate found only on to ibe, and aromatic food items. The the Indian Ocean island of exactly what sound cues the around the entrance � misuse of red pepper spray as Madagascar. Aye-aye follows when it is for­ burrows. Both male_ ill�' pean id a repellent is presently omit­ The Aye-aye locates these aging. female Euro � s of The researchers filled cavi­ Crabs adorn the opening f ted from the product's warn­ soft, plump morsels by tap­ b ing labels. To further com­ ping the wood of trees with its ties in spruce wood blocks their burrows with t�Js with a range of materials of mud. Could these mu pound the problem, the man­ long fingers-in particular, excav a· ufacturers recommend that the skinny middle finger on different densities and moni­ be just a side-effect of do tored the responses of captive tion? Maybe so. But wh� t newly purchased red pepper each of its hands. It then per en spray canisters be test-fired, gnaws down through the Aye-ayes. They found that, males construct 20 0 AUSTRALIA SUMMER !999-200 10 NATURE ore mud balls than females, m Debunking the despite being only 12 per cent Bar larger in body size? bie Myth When Oliveira et al. n some cultures, men oved the mud balls fr pre­ rem om I fer plump women. In oth­ around a male's burrow, the ers, they like them slim. male became involved in whatever But their weight prefer­ many more fights and threats ences, men have a wide­ with his neighbours. And this spread predilection for was not just because males fen 1al_ es with low waist-to-hip were more visible without rat10s (WHRs). their mud balls (their out­ This has been revealed sized claws extend well above repeatedly by anthropologi­ this barrier). Perhaps the line cal surveys-acros time of mud balls acts like a terri­ cult1.1ral, geographic and eco'. tory-defining fence, deterring nomic boundaries. In fact it's unnecessary incursions. been widely accepted, as 'one The researchers also dis­ of the few constants of human covered that female Euro­ attraction, that males prefer pean Fiddler Crabs like mud wasp-waisted or 'gynoid' balls. When offered a choice women (think Barbie) over of dummy males surrounded their thick-waisted sisters. by varying numbers of mud But there's a problem with balls, females tended to this generalisation, according choose the males with the to Douglas Yu (Imperial Col­ most mud balls. Perhaps they lege at Silwood Park, UK) use the number and/or vol­ and Glenn Shepard (Universi­ ume of mud balls to assess ty of California at Berkeley). the quality of the male or Even the most remote settle­ even the size of his brood ments on Earth are exposed chamber. And, if so, the com­ to images from the developed bination of claws and balls world in which the curves of makes male European Fid­ dler Crabs well equipped for Are all men innately attracted to the double role of fending off the image of a wasp-waisted males and attracting females. woman, or is this simply an -D.C. artefact of Western conditioning? Davidson' s Arnhernland Safaris. Northern Australia's most exciting Aboriginal wildlife and fishing experience.

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a Davidson PO Box 41905 Casuarina NT 0811 Contact: M ax & Ph"llipp1 Fax: (08) 8945 0919 Phone: (08) 8927 5240 email: [email protected] extensive genetic similarities between Could the Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) be a proto-whale? Recent studies demonstrate hippopotamuses and whales. particularly gynoid women gests their preferences are these ancient terrestrial their young and communi­ are used as marketing tools. shifting. predators, and they too must cate extensively while under Perhaps Western preferences The men of even more have no close modern rela­ water. Could the surprisingly Westernised indigenous peo­ tives. whale-like squeals and clicks are simply rubbing off on a them? ple that live a little farther However, an intriguing emitted by hippos represent To test this idea, Yu and away have similar WHR pref­ alternative scenario has primordial stage in the evolu· Shepard sought the WHR erences to men in the United recently emerged. In two sep­ tion of whale song? ti s preferences of some of the States. arate studies, John Gatesy Until now these similaii e most culturally isolated It seems, therefore, that the from the University of Ari­ were dismissed as c �nv�r­ hfe 10 humans on Earth today-a human male's preference for zona (USA), and Bjorn Urs­ gent adaptations to · group of Matsigenka people wasp-waisted females is not ing and Ulfur Arnason from water but the molecular S!ud whales direct!� in Yomybato village in south­ so much an innate part of the Lund University (Sweden), ies s�1ggest at east Peru. They found that human condition but an arte­ examined extensive DNA inherited them from an aqu r the Yomybato men prefer women fact created by the influences ic, hippo-like ncesto: (r� ; sequences f om whales and a � e). 1 who by Western standards of Western media. range of other mammals. The than a cursonal carrnvoi indeed re�re­ would be considered over­ -K.McG. molecular evidence demon­ living hippos 1 weight and, regardless of the m sd strated that hippopotamuses sent 'proto-whales', an weight, they like their women are very closely related to ing link between whales The Way to a never to have high WHRs. Slim Whale whales (an idea first pro­ land mammals was gynoid women, so popular in all. posed in 1994), and further missing after ael le! the West, are considered The origin of whales from -Mich reflection revealed that hip­ uee nsland unhealthy. I typical land mammals pos are actually very whale­ University of Q The researchers also stud­ has posed a long-standing like in both anatomy and ied Matsigenka people from challenge for evolutionary behaviour. Both hippos and • nS the village of Shipetiari, biologists. Discoveries of whales posse s bloated, elon­ Burnt Offer111� which has had more d? expo­ primitive fossil whales with gated bodies and ridiculously for Big· B.1r · sure to Western media. well-developed legs appear­ little limbs, both lack hair and the Shipetiari men also eggshells Of · find over­ ed to resolve the issue by sebaceous (oil) glands over ossil n d r weight women attractive and linking cetaceans with extinct much of the skin, and both large flightless 'th� F olll Ot fer regard a high WHR as a sign hoofed carnivores called have their testicles positioned bird' Genyor:ni� newt_ e into th of good health, but they rate mesonychids, which are only within the body rather than a crucial 111s1J5ht_ us· women inct10n of A with low WHRs even distantly related to modern dangling free. Al o, unlike Pleistocene ext The more attractive and prefer­ hoofed mammals. If o, mo t mammals but like tralia's megafauna. . r i y 10 able as spouses, which sug- whales are descended f om whales, hippos mate, suckle extinctions are a myste 00 99-20 12 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER i9 many scientists who cannot eggshell from three different ornis agree on a ingle main cause relied on a specialised tion for megafaunal extinc­ regions of arid and semi-arid diet of leaves, while Emus ate tions invites the testing of or an explanation as to why Australia, the researchers some large species disap­ both leaves and grasses. The several implications and demonstrated that Emus and researchers suggest that the assumptions. For example, is peared while others like the Genyornis were companions change in landscape-burning Red Kangaroo and Emu sur­ there secure evidence of vived. Did increasingly arid humans in the landscape 50,000 years ago, or even that climates give Emus and other this was the time of their first surviving species a competi­ arrival? Do ecological data tive edge? Did the early Abo­ support an increase or rigines hunt the giant animals Was their last meal so badly Genyornis change in burning at this and to extinction? time? Could younger 30,000- Or was their la t meal so burnt by the first Australians year-old age estimates for badly burnt by the first Aus­ Genyornis (found at Cuddie tralians that the Big Birds Springs, New South Wales) (and other megafauna) that the Big Birds starved to death? suggest a more gradual starved to death? demise? Although each of Gifford Miller (University these issues is hotly debated, of Colorado) and colleagues the tiny eggshell fragments of have found exciting evidence this Big Bird may yet solve that fire may be the main for hundreds of. thousands of regimes caused by the earli­ the greatest mystery of Aus­ cause. Their argument is years until, in one fell swoop est Australians led to the loss tralian prehistory. based on the resistant chemi­ about 50,000 years ago, Geny­ of leafy habitat, which in turn -Richard Fullagar r cal properties of eggshell, ornis died out f om each of led to the extinction of Geny­ Australian Museum which allow preciseestimates the areas (and presumably ornis and other large to be made of the age, associ­ the rest of the continent). browsers (indeed, most of the ated climate and feeding They found no evidence that megafauna were probably The King's Poo habits of the birds, even from climatic change triggered the browsers). The less fussy the tiniest fragments. For the extinctions but do point out Emus (with their broader­ ecently, palaeontologists first time, attempts to directly that 50,000 years ago was based diet) were able to sur­ Rstruck paydirt when date an actual element of the around the time that humans vive the change to a more they discovered an enormous megafauna (eggshell) have may first have arrived in Aus­ grassy vegetation. piece of fossilised dung pro­ produced reliable and consis­ tralia. Isotopic analysis of the While certainly plausible, truding from a Canadian rock tent results. By sampling eggshells indicates that Geny- the 'burnt offerings' explana- formation. Not only did it

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13 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 1 po r den � tal occlu .t extinct theropods � o�. th the di_d htt way of red c le·' items to a u ing Pr�n manageab before eating the ]e si/ Also recenut· e it' from the 'bo , merged w l of �arth, this time the' m l�nia c Nevada, is a 20 0 O avt old lump O-year. of sl' 1 Bel_ieved to be /� Poo. extinct grou f ni the theriops nd sloth No shaste nszs. hth r� s kelet?n was found nw OSt, Hendnk Poinar e�rby, (Unive rsityo Munich) and colleag ! i rs Were able to identifyD NA o plants consu b rnt he med Y t doomed animal. he While NA � from fr esh excrement is easily extr ac th.is is· ted the first time it h s, , worked on ancient a f f a eces. They found DNA rom s even groups of . plants, which �resently exist only at elev� tions about 800 metres above the cave, suggesting the cli­ mate was colder and wetter than today. One of the plants was a type of grape that today only grows around springs and streams. The closes! known water so urces or palaeosprings of relevant age are between 10 and 20 kilo­ metres away, suggesting the sloth had a long hike to quench his thirst.

Pyramids Mimic Bird Calls hen tourists clap the� hands at the base of W cas reveal what its owner ate but the steep limestone stair es that climb the outside how it processed its food as pyr mid well. wall of the Mayan a as the Temple of Karen Chin (United States known za, Geological Kukulkan (at Chichen l( Survey) and col­ bird-hke l�agues found a high propor­ Mexico), a curious �1on of small bone fragments echo is produced. by such repo�ls, !n t_he ?-1-kilogram coprolite, Inti·igued stI�� David Lubman, an acou indicating it came from a California, large carnivorous dinosaur. consultant from 30 r the l, � Of the theropods known f om decided to visit e site for himself. .0 n the sediments in the area Year-old o 11 e Tyrannosaurus rex look at the sb·ucture J 1 only wa� ed abou staircases (complet ar capable of producing such a de it c l� deposit. This is_ very exciting 900 years ag·o) ma 11ve to him how such a di. sl:111· \ because coprohtes are usual­ uced. he echo could be prod c d ly taxonomically indistinct. s�a e ' The sharp edges of the hundre? or. so even!� lh nse to pe110dica bone fragments (probably a steps give se r� spaced echoe , and the P d juvenile hadrosaur or cer­ ds he3\ alopsian dinosaur) indicate duce the tonal soun The steps 1iavd the bones were fractured by vi. itors. . . z·s a n re I at1vel y l11g l1 nse e ?efoi·e ating, and were rt r mcompletely dige ted. This is short u·eads (the pa wheah you put your £oo9. A]lb0;;"0r conlra_ry to ome suggestions _ r m eac that, like living reptiles with sound 1s echoed f o 99-2000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER !9 Monkey bus iness: rank differences in Japanese Macaques , may determine whether the female reaches orgasm.

these step-faces, acoustical with the mythical human-like the existence of female leading to female orgasm _ engineering predicts that the figure of Kukulkan. When orgasms in humans, the evo­ involved the social relation­ individual echoes produced Lubman compared sona­ lutionary significance and ships between the mating first from the lower, closer graphs of the echo with that existence of the female partners. More orgasms steps will be higher in pitch of the bird, he found a orgasm in other primates is occurred in copulations compared to those from the remarkable match. (If you still hotly debated. between low-ranking females progressively higher and want to listen to it for your­ Recent work by Alfonso and high-ranking males, than more distant steps. The result self, click on "Quetzal bird Troisi (Universita di Roma between males and females of is a rapid succession of chirps" at http://www.ocasa. Tor Vergata) and Monica equivalent rank or between echoes descending in pitch org/MayanPyramid. htm.) Carosi (Universita di Roma high-ranking females and that sounds remarkably like Lubman believes that the La Sapienza) casts light upon low-ranking males. the chirping of a bird. Mayan people incorporated the role of female orgasms in Some scientists think that Is the bird-like echo an the quetzal-like cries into the captive Japanese Macaques female orgasm at the time of accidental by-product of pyra­ sacred ceremonies conduct­ (Macaca fuscata). While ejaculation increases the mid design? After all buskers ed at the pyramid. Although observing the natural behav­ chances of fertilisation, or in today's cities ofte� choose there is no other evidence iours of a large colony of that the clutching reaction to perform near bridges or that the Mayans used quetzal macaques over eight months, helps trigger ejaculation. steps to enhance acoustics cries in their ceremonies, the Troisi and Carosi counted Orgasms might increase a even low-ranking female's chance _ though the originai idea certainly sounds good 240 heterosexual copulations architects did not anticipate and archaeologists applaud between 68 different pairs of of having offspring with a these uses. However Lub­ the research. macaques. Of these copula­ high-ranking male, and being ma� thinks otherwi;e. He -Richard Fullagar tions, a third of the females mother to the boss's kids has believes the pyramid stairs Australian Museum showed behaviours indicative other benefits like protection we�e intentionally built for of orgasms (clutching, body and access to resources. t�eir peculiar sonic proper­ spasms and characteristic High-ranking females, in ties. vocalisations). comparison, mate with high­ Alpha Males ­ ranking males more often The echo is reminiscent of Make the Earth There was no overall differ the cry of the Resplendent ence in the age or dominance anyway and may not need to Que�zal (Pharomachrus Move of females that experienced rely on orgasms to ensure mocznn ­ paternity by the dominant o)-the national bird emale orgasms are a sen­ orgasms, but longer copula of Guatamala. This magnifi in more ways tions, with a greater number male. For female macaques at cent ­ sitive issue least, there may be some bird, now critically thanF one, with their very exis­ of mounts and pelvic thrusts, endangered, was consid called into ques­ were more likely to result in rewards for being at the bot­ s ered tence being an tom of the pecking order! acred b� the Mayan people. by past scientists. While female orgasm. However, 1n tion factor -D.C. deed, it is often depicted few scientists today debate even more significant

NATURE AUS TRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 15 " It seems it really do es rain ll on weekends, and lore we on ly h ourselves to blame. ave

�I t ter_n one h� P would ex e ct at. lut1on was indee � _if Pot' d e!pin create rain clouds g 1!1, It seems we ea� n 1 �urse hi on�er gher powers 1o rr � mg our weekend b u1n­ b equ We now have only� es.: ursetvt\ to blame. I -1�. Opposites Attract

hat m_akes two Peopli fall W 111 love? N ei research has lent credenc t�e old wives' tale that 0;: I sites attract-on a generi c > level anyway. Carole Ober (Universityol Chi�ago) has found that Wt avoid prospective mate, 1 :"hose genes that control tht immune system are too imi­ lar to our own, particulark 1 those known as the major hi�! tocompatability complex (MHC) or, in humans, tht human leukocyte antigen (HI.A) system. These groups of genes guide the production of antibodies and rejection oi foreign tissue. Work with inbred mice iJJI the late 1970s demonstrated that individuals were more likely to mate with those ,�ili different MHC genes; sub t 1 quent research revealed ha! when newborn male nuce were placed with foster motlr t am. ers of a differen MHC str t dei they subsequen ly avoi weri females whose MHCs mo_tlr similar to their foster that t he nm: er's. It seems t imprint on h�;: somehow ther. mother's (or foster mo early age. MHC at an t t is h� Ober inves igated th t ge�iebl) in relation o the a ry ente , of fertility in the Hutt red ' t l group of inb � Rainy fall on weekends. the researchers believe hat, specia e from the USA As :

� E,oel Uol,ed Compaoy Llm"°d

Eaoel Printing U.K. 3 Henry S\(81t Trlng, H1rt1ord11\lre HP23 BBH, U.K Toi 14411"2891460 Fax 1441 14t2 89Ull1 co dk E mall mbremme,Onlldram

NATUR 17 E AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 outside. But what is it that northern Sulawesi. In 1997 turns the liquid silk into the Mark Erdmann (University ofo­ solid ela tic state? Fritz Voll­ California at Berkeley) Ph rath '(University of Aarhus in t�graph�d a Co�lacanth that , Denmark) and colleagues his wife noticed being believe it is the acid bath that wheeled across a fish market 1/ the spicier creates for its�lf. in Manado and, during subse­ Examination of the mner quent interviews, several fish- claimed to wall of the spinning tubule ermen raja taut, have cap­ showed fine corrugations, tured Coelacanths, which which are thought to be they call or 'king of f involved in ion transport. the sea' ..These �xtraordinary Water is removed from the+ new discoveries provide , topr encl of thespinning tubule strong evidence that there is ( and then hydrogen ions (H ) a permanent Indonesian pop- f om the water are pumped ulation of Coelacanths. ! back into the tubule farther Mark Erdmann and Roy clown increasing the pH level Caldwell (also from the Uni­ (making it acidic). This versity of California at Berke. results in strong hydrogen ley), and Kasim Moosa from bonds forming between the the Indonesian Institute of thickening 'paste' of silk mol­ Sciences, suspect that the Indonesian Coelacanth(Latime­ ma y ecules, which interlinkr firmly ria chalumnae) to harden into the insoluble be the same speciesr fibre that emerges f om the as the popu]a. spigot. tion known f om the Comoro Acid baths are also used in Islands, although only a corn- I the manufacture of today's plete genetic and morpholog-1 industrial polymers (such as ical analysis will tell for sure. rayon) but ature's method, Certainly they appear very � through millions of years of similar from the outside, evolution, has shown itself to except that, rather than being be much more sophisticated a mottled steel blue colour, and economical. If we could the Indonesian Coelaca nth is ) only simulate natural spicier mottled brown. It is unlikely silk production, we would that Coelacanths exist in two ( also have a recyclable prod­ small, highly disjunct popula· uct. We could dispose of it tions, and Erdmann and col· without guilt, or we could eat leagues argue that additional it-it works for the spiders populations may be discov· -J.M. anyway. ered between the Comoro and Indonesia. Arnold Gor· don of Lamont-Doherty Earth Indonesian f.' Observatory in ew York I Coelacanth agrees. He suggests that n Coelacanth populations may exist along the route of an e discovery of the first oceanographic current link· ve Coelacanth in 1938 ing the Indonesian Isl�nds caused great excitement with the Comoros. If this 1s because it was the sole sur­ true, the discovery of ad1i· viving member of a lineage of will I tional populations fishes thought to have The golden orb-weaver Nephila edulis. Scientists are one step closer enhance the prospects of sur· � become extinct about 80 mil­ to manufacturing artificial spider silk. viva] for this fascinating and lion years ago. Living Coela­ -S.R. r r critically endangered fish. I canths are rarely collected, and when they are it is f om Further Reading sting to arouse the bees into bulletproof vests. A recent their presumed home in the Cerveny, R.S. & Balling, R.C. Jr, 199B. I pursuit behaviour. Bees that (Araneus diade­ Weekly prec1p1ta· matus)study on how the Garden Comoro archipelago near cycles of air pollutants, had had their sting removed Cross Spicier Madagascar. Three speci­ tion and tropical cyclones in the coastal f while anaesthetised did not makes its clragline silk mens were found to the south NW Atlantic region. Nature 394. engage in defensive behav­ is providing clues as to how of the Comoros, but genetic 561-563. iour, only those that had lost we can artificially manufac­ analysis has shown that these their sting in full swing. -A.T. Chin, K., Tokaryk,T.T., Erickson, G.M. & ture such silk on an industrial were strays from the same Calk, L.C., 1998. A king-sized theropod Spider Silk scale. population. It was with great coprolite. Nature 393: 680-682. Silk production in spiders surprise, therefore, that in Production begin as a liquid protein July 1998 a Coelacanth was Cunard, S.J. & Breed, M.D., 1998. Post· Line? secreted in special glands. In collected by fishermen off stinging behavior of worker honey be� dragline silk, the liquid then northern Sulawesi, 10,000 (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Ann. Entomo. travels down a progressively kilometres from the Soc. Am. 91(5): 754-757. Aspider's silk is stronger narrowing spinning tubule Comoros. The new Indone­ rt, R.G than steel and more and eventually emerges as a sian specimen is not actually Davis, L.S., Hunter, F.M., Harcou elastic than the fibres used in solid through a spigot to the the fir t to be reported from 0 18 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-200 & Heath, S.M., 1998. Reciprocal homo­ Miller, G.H., Magee, J.W., Johnson, B.J., Qiang, J., Currie, P.J., Norell, M.A. & sexual mounting in Adelie Penguins Fogel, M.L., Spooner, N.A., McCulloch, Shu-An, J., 1998. Two feathered Pygoscelis adeliae. Emu 98: 136-137. M.T. & Ayliffe, L.K., 1999. Pleistocene dinosaurs from northeastern China. QUICK QUIZ extinction of Genyomis newtoni: human Nature 393: 753-761. Erdmann, M.V., Caldwell, R.L. & Moosa, impact on Australian megafauna. Sci­ 1. What was the name of M.K., 1998. Indonesian 'king of the sea' ence 283: 205-208. the devastating cyclone Nature Small, M.F., 1998. Love with the proper discovered. 395: 335. stranger. Nat. Hist. 9/98: 14-19. that hit the town of Ober, C., Hyslop, T., Elias, S., Weitkamp, Exmouth (WA) in March Erickson, C.J., Nowicki, S., Dollar, L. & L.R. & Hauck, W.W., 1998. HLA match­ Smith, T.S., 1998. Attraction of brown 1999? , Goehring, N., 1998. Percussive foraging: ing and fetal loss: results of a 10-year bears to red pepper spray deterrent: 2. Where is the Ross Sea? stimuli for prey location by aye-ayes prospective study. Human Reproduction caveats for use. Wild/.Soc. Bull. 26(1): 92-94. (Daubentonia madagascariensis). Inter­ 13: 33-38. 3. What colour are bandy­ natl 1. Primatol. 19(1): 111-122. Troisi, A. & Carosi, M., 1998. Female bandy snakes? Ober, C., Weitkamp, L.R., Dytch, H., orgasm rate increases with male domi­ 4. Which two main Gatesy, J., 1997. More DNA support for Kostyu, D.D., Elias, S. & Cox, N., 1997. nance in Japanese macaques. Anim. scientists discovered the a Cetacea-Hippopotamidae clade: the Am. HLA and mate choice in humans. 1. Behav. 56: 1261-1266. double-helix structure of blood-clotting protein gene gamma-fib­ Hum. Genet. 61: 497-504. DNA? rinogen. Malec. Biol. £vol. 14: Ursing, B.M. & Amason, U., 1998. 537-543. Oliveira, R.F., McGregor, P.K., Burford, Analyses of mitochondrial genomes 5. What is autotomy? F.R.L., Custodio & Latruffe, C., 1998. strongly support a hippopotamus-whale 6. Give the common name Gordon, A.L., 1998. Coelacanth popula­ Functions of mudballing behaviour in clade. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B 2 65: for Architeuthis species? Nature Vea tangeri. tions may go with the flow. 395: the European fiddler crab 2251-2255. 7. What is 3.14159 better 634. Anim. Behav. 55: 1299-1309. known as? Vollrath, F., Knight, D.P. & Hu, X.W., Hunter, F.M. & Davis, L.S., 1998. Poinar, H.N., Hofreiter, M., Spaulding, 1998. Silk production in a spider 8. Which cicada sex makes Female Adelie Penguins acquire nest W.G., Martin, P.S., Stankiewia, B.A., involves acid bath treatment. Proc. R. all the noise? material from extrapair males after Bland, H., Evershed, R.P., Possnert, G., Soc. Land. B 265: 817-820. 9. What is the name of the The engaging in extrapair copulations. Paabo, S., 1998. Molecular coproscopy: virus, discovered last Auk 115(2): 526-528. dung and diet of the extinct ground sloth Yu, D.W. & Shepard, G.H., 1998. Is March in Malaysia, that Nothrotheriops shastensis. Science281: beauty in the eye of the beholder? Lubman, D., 1988. Archaeological 402-406. Nature 396: 321-322. kills pigs and also acoustic study of chirped echo from the humans (and other Mayan pyramid of Chichen ltza.Meeting animals)? of the Acoustical Society of America. Danielle (lode, Jason Major, Karen McGhee, Stephen Richards, 10. Who is the President of 12-16 October 1998. Norfolk, Vancou­ the Australian Conservation ver. Philippa Rowlands, Rachel Sullivan and Abbie Thomas Foundation? Martill, D.M. & Davis, P.G., 1998. Did are regular contributors to Nature Strips. (Answers in Q&A) dinosaurs come up to scratch? Nature 396: 528-529.

19 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 T->� . - odenls, . ' r but mostly all k"in , 'be�e fi c1a · l' ds of·in THE BACKYARD NATURALIST or otherwise. sects . (AcLikeridotheres the Indian tristis) or Co _ n taken�:T0 My a 1� 1876, f n 1 Toads are no fools. Th�y are quick-learning, loads ailed to make �nsvi\le 1 Cane s1on on cane a� 1111Pr and toxic. beetles. But u 1 es. opportunistic, tough cocky birds that stu e o ck mo� \k o!h , .i tow_ns of the north, t the )e the toad;Yg their way up and down obbl d, � the Q e ae coast until loday lhey �� �sl nd 1 are fou 1n ... urbs and bushland well into b su� HAVE WARTS South th Wales and the Northern _New I saw my 1erntory. first Cane Toads in about 40 years WILL TRAVEL ago when Toy Fi:dney an enormous, avant-garde . en s, trop ica] feish emporium, was plunging into BY STEVEVAN DYCK nte t waters selling designer pets lik s ed t in the Willows, hatched Estuarine e l Kenneth Grahame, or Saltwater twrocy ' diles for around 1908). ten pounds ea ch a o. � And so, guided by an undiscriminating Cane T?ads for the discer nd � 111 ning b palate and an appetite like the Moura There a dry plastic-lined abYer. a that first toad, one of the ground pool were about e i Coal Drag Line, a zillion run-. original 120-strong army of unsavoury shine Stale toads in a grizzly contin u importees, set off to give cane beetles a of life and death, clambering over" m :, lashing. The whole charade was an ill­ another, puddling and ampl exint fated gamble whose backfire is celebrat­ their own filth. I think the going prit 1 E WORD BEST DESCRIBES ed among the most notable of Australian was around five shillings each, which b:­ how tropical north Queensland must ecological cock-ups. the look and smell of t�e groping mass American Marine or Cane was a gross presumption have looked through the eyes of the first The (BufoSouth marinus), on southern Cane Toad turnedloose on 22 June 1935 Toads which had actual­ cosmopolitanism. ... goluptious. ly been imported from Hawaii, couldn't I do remember being genuinelv \ "It was, indeed, the most beautiful tell scarabs from skinks, and for most of tempted to buy one of these northern stew in the world, being made of par­ the time their target diet of cane beetles curiosities, but it was their contagious­ b·idges, and pheasants, and chickens, was either up out of sight in the cane looking skin condition that clinched the and hares, and rabbits, and peahens, and stalks, or out of mind pupating under­ no-deal clause for me. The uneven, pit­ guinea fowls, and one or two other ground. So the toads ate everything ted, warty-looking textur e, scorched 1 things. Toad took the plate on his lap, their clever flying tongues could make a and dry, gave them the appearance o! grab for . . . lizards, spiders, small confused survivors of an unpublished almost crying, and stuffed, and(The stuffed, Wind and kept asking for more ... snakes, mouse-sized mar upials and government experiment into pond lile 1

Thick, creamy venom exudes from the parotoid gland of a Cane Toad.

2000 99- 20 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 19 und abandoned nuclear reactors. few clays because the aspirin lacing their 1 aro were split between studies assessing the 1 Few people then had any idea that reality of 'the threat' and investigations urine killed the toad. toad skin was loaded with gland capa­ into the earch for the ultimate load ter­ I've often wondered what became of ble ofr secreting toxic venom, in parlicu­ minator. all those toads in the Driclad pool at the � lar f om the two neshy, strawberry­ When female loads can churn out Toy Fisheries shop. It was clear then k shaped earmuff ju l above the shoul­ 35,000 eggs at a sitting, it is not urpri - that just about nobody in Sydney wanted ' ders. These gland called paroloicls ing that the competitive effect of Cane to buy them. However, not long ago react much the same under pressure a Toads is a great concern. Sometimes Arthur White, Secretary of the New peeled 01:an�·e skin .. . a good squeeze after heavy rains, certain creeks almost South Wales Frog and Tadpole Study fluid ,s eJeclecl (rom the ducts. In clog with the schooling black tadpoles, Group, announced with concern that a 1 and the Cane Toad's case the thick fluid i a and in backyards and bushland the number of toad had been heard trilling creamy venom that resembles oleander ground is literally alive and hopping with in a swamp at the Olympic City site, or fia-tree sap. Most toad literature tiny, newly metamorphosed toacllets. Homebush. Homebush is half-a-parotoicl repo,1s that pre sure might build up The tragedy of the Cane Toad clebacle squirt from Strathfielcl where Toy Fish­ inside the venom reservoirs of the paro­ lies in their being the most unfortunate eries used to be. If I were a visitor to the toicl gland so that a milky jet squirts a r choice a importees. Cane Toads are no Games I'd be a little more apprehensive metre or so f om the toad. This create fools. They are quick-learning, oppor­ about how crocodile sales had gone 40 an unsettling impression that Queens- tunistic, tough and toxic ... attributes of years back! • land after dark must resemble Rotorua success that have not escaped emulation as millions of turgid parotoicls spurt in the higher orders of politics and real Further Reading gland-glug into the evening air. Th_e e tate. Cogger, H., 1994. Reptiles and amphibians of Australia. truth, known to most toad busters, 1? About the only positive contribution Reed Books: Chatswood. that squirts are nearly always mechani­ r Cane Toads have made to the Australian cally induced, like f om the whack of a way of life is their use, during the early Ingram, G., 1988. The "Australian" Cane Toad. Pp. baseball bat, or a Doc Martin squashing 1950s and early '60s, in human pregnan­ 59-66 in Venoms and victims, ed. by J. Pearn and J. Covacevich. Queensland Museum and Amphion Press: the parotoid so flat the venom is sent cy tests. In a procedure more befitting Brisbane. flying. an Edgar Allan Poe thriller, a male toad But the toxic nature of Cane Toads was injected with could-be-mother's Sutherland, S., 1983. Australian animal toxins. Oxford should not be taken for granted, the urine in the lymphatic tissue below the University Press: Melbourne venom being a mix of steroid derivatives toad's neck. Within a few hours the that may act promptly and savagely on toad's cloaca was flushed and its urine Dr Steve Van Dyck is a Senior Curator of heart muscle. Its passage into the microscopically examined for sperm Vertebrates at the Queensland Museum human blood system can be effected not cells, which develop in response to where he has worked since 1975. He warm­ only through cuts or abrasions but even human pregnancy hormones (if pre­ ly acknowledges the help of Dr Theo Baer by penetration through intact skin, and sent). Prior to the test women were (Brisbane) who generously provided first­ people with known heart asked if they had recently taken aspirin. hand information on the Cane Toad's con­ for that reason tribution to Queensland pregnancies. conditions are warned off handling If they had, the test was abandoned for a toads. As for those that smoke a dry­ shredded, road-kill panatella as a recre­ ational adjuvant, their hearts are on the CANE TOAD line. Humans have died after eating soup Bufo marinus made from boiled-up toad eggs, and it is not uncommon for Dogs to die within 15 Classification minute of biting or mouthing a toad. Family Bufonidae ('true toads') One Dog I recently heard about lived long enough to develop something of a Identification toad habit. Of an evening the Dog used Adults usually to 15 cm long, olive-brown, greyish or yellow-tan, warty dry skin, beetle brows forming a 'V' ridge to nose, strawberry-shaped venom glands on shoulders, to find a toad, lick or mouth its back, . then career mindlessly around the yard fingers unwebbed, toes webbed. Juveniles confusingly different to ad�lts with dark l�n�s, in a coil of circles until it collapsed in a splashes and bands on limbs, head and back. Tadpoles black with pointed nose. Toxic in frothy heap, later to recover its wits and all life forms. set out for its next lick. One of the more serious concerns Distribution and Habitat associated with Cane Toads lies in their Occurs naturally in South and Central America. In Australia tropical northern and poten�i�l effects on native birds, reptiles, eastern Qld, the Gulf in NT and breeding as far south as Port Macquarie in NSW. Broad amph1b1ans, fish and mammals that mis­ range of habitat tolerances from mangroves, sand dunes, grasslands, forests, freshwater take toads' thighs for frogs' legs and swamps and semi-arid woodlands. Also at ease in suburban backyards, under stre�t swallow them. Such gourmands might lights, in parks and around swimming pools. Endangered around schoolyards and in not get to face a second serve of the beer gardens. same dish, and reports of declines in Lace Monitors, Red-bellied Black Behaviour Snakes _ and Spotted-tailed Quolls add to Although officially a 'non-climber', capable of the most extraordinary feats as�odated th1s conce . rn. On the other hand some with getting to water or food or escaping incarceration. Eats ractically anything, eve� an1mas I ' p lI ke Torres1an Crows Water- dry Dog or Cat biscuits, shellfish and crabs, but undoubtedly insects form the bulk of its rats an I ' . c F• res h water Snakes are dealing under daytime cover of rubbish, rocks, fallen timber and iron sheets, dark w,t1 them diet. Lives and profiting from their full drains, holes. romachs. The dilemma · ane with hitting the _ Toad panic button is that research IS Sb II . Breeding , 1 ea1 t' ive 1 Y young and scientists trill. Females lay eggs in any permanent, d 0n ty Male's call is a pleasant continuous warbling et kno w I·r native predators of eggs laid in long sticky the e b are on ephemeral, or slow-moving body of water. Thousands d : �und after the initial toxic knock­ o 0 rosary bead strands. wonder tempers fiared a few Year�- ago when toad research funds A U N T RE AUST RA LIA SUMMER 1999-2000 21 RARE & ENDANGERED

ft has stumbled on an easy lifestyle where the dung comes to it, instead of vice versa. WINGLESS DUNG BEETLE BY GEOFF MONTEITH

importation campaign was carried out with such vigour and publicity that it became a popular fallacy that Australia had no native dung beetles. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have a rich and diverse fauna of around 400 native species. However, one only has to mentally compare the economi­ cal, dry, hard dung pellets that Aus­ tralia's marsupials produce, with the GREW UP O A QUEENSIANO DAJRY steaming, wet pile that a cow generates farmI in the 1950s and was intimately ten times a day, to realise that very dif­ acquainted with a foreign material that ferent beetle strategies are required to had insidiously become a landscape icon cope with these contrasting foodstuffs. in Australia-cow dung. No rural scene What do dung beetles do with dung? was complete without it, as either warm, They suck some juices out as their own semi-liquid paste that squeezed up food, but mostly they carve it up into between bare toes, or as dried clods that chunks, which they bury in the ground persisted as toe-stubbing obstacles as food for their larvae. To do this the months after deposition. dung must still be soft and moist. But Scientists at the CSIRO realised in the kangaroos are wide-ranging creatures 1960s that these long-lasting cow pats that drop their meagre pellets far and were environmentally deleterious wide across the landscape. To track because they bred flies,harboured para­ these pellets down before they dry rock­ sites and locked up potential soil nutri­ hard, dung beetles need to be strong ents. They began to test African dung fliers and have a keen sense of smell. beetles for import into Australia to dis­ Inland Australia is dominated by the perse this dungfest. African beetles had strong-flying dung beetles of the cos­ evolved to cope with the squishy dung of mopolitan genus Onthophagus. Some the many cattle-like herbivores on the even pursue the kangaroos themselves, African plains, so they were well then, using enlarged, hairpin-like claws equipped for the task. But the CSIRO on the ends of their legs, cling to the cloaca! fur so they can jump aboard al the 'factory door' as a pellet emerge When Eric Matthews (South Au· revised the taxonon�Y tralian Museum) us of the Ausb-alian Onthophag in 197�· • e 11 1 JO he found a cunous, large sp c• 1 e11 . e e the Paris Museum. It was lab ll d���: ply "Queensland" and marked / sho(·t . musao H.W. �ates 1892". Its 111bi0; a 1 g ?vers m cle h'. ed �� convex w � c � l ft p c1ous. When its wmg cove1 s we� e i 1 1 1 1 s it proved to be complet�ly w 17r� 1;� counter to every assumpbon abot ophagus. d ii genus Onth He _nam� n Onthophagus apterus, 1 1 g vi t 1 � eanin c 1 e e imen,·, less' ' and thrust the u 11qu. sptJ al·1 . 111 e p from 80 years obscurity i e iig· Museum, to the status of a moderrn �nd ma. it really come f om Where did se' d ii what evolutionary process had cau to lose its power of flight?. ver· Twenty-four years later, in 1996, se e n� al chunky clung beetles turn d up i 2000 22 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999- ,,,, pitfall trap, set by the Queensland Muse­ death in 1892. The Amazon was Bates' an easy lifestyle where the dung comes um just north ofTaroom, in central west­ bailiwick and he never set foot in Aus­ to it, instead of vice versa. By utilising �rn Queensland. To everyone's aston­ tralia. But he purchased beetles from a the clung of mammals that returnin rea­ ishment, they were the long-lost Wing­ Western Australian collector named sonable aggregations to regular daytime less Dung Beetle. They came from a Francis du Boulay who spent three reb·eats, populations of the beetle can small hill, cleared of most vegetation months in Queensland in 1870. Part of prosper without the need for flight. But except for narrow thickets of vine scrub that time was spent at "Coomooboola­ with a life of ease comes vulnerability. bet:"'een rocky outcrops, which had roo" station, west of Rockhampton and Those vine scrubs, which once occurred ob�10usly prevented the vegetation from only 150 kilomeb·es north of where our extensively throughout the subcoastal being completely cleared. Resident on modern Onthophagus apterus came Brigalow Belt, have been decimated by the hill, and a closely kept secret of the from. Du Boulay almost certainly col­ pastoral clearing and are now among the landowner, was a semi-tame colony of lected that original specimen and sold it most threatened plant communities in Herbert's Rock-wallabies (Petrogale her­ to Bates. Ausb·alia. With them have declined a bertz) that returned to the thickets each Our searches have so far located the wealth of animal species about which we day to rest, where they deposited little beetle at only one other site, in a larger are just starting to learn. • food parcels for the dung beetles. fragment of vine scrub preserved in Isla The discovery Here it lives on the . allows us to speculate a Gorge National Park. Further Reading little on the provenance of that original droppings of a dense colony of Bla�k­ sp . dorsa zs), Matthews, E.G., 1972. A revision of the scarabaeine ecimen in the Paris Museum. Henry striped Wallabies (Macropus � beetles of Australia. 1. Tribe Onthophagini. Aust. J. Walter Bates was one of the great explor­ which use the vine scrub as a dayt11ne Zoo/. Suppl. Ser. 9: 1-329. er-naturalists of the 19th century, and refu�. beetles were his game. His collection Why has Onthophagus apterus lost its Dr Geoff Monteith is Curator of Lower Ento­ was Passed to the Paris Museum on his wings? It seems that it has stumbled on mology at the Queensland Museum.

NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 23 has been resolved toda th THINGS y b t e e WILD still _disagreements about � r are (Dasu h la Native Thornapple tu raP ntsas hardtiz), leich minima) Native Gooseber . of exotic pests are s 1 Jn Australia today, plenty acu_leatum;and Native Pop;; �hYsa/i masquerading as wildlife. probably a weed fro( UPaver Afnca). There are also disag rn South betwee_n. t �e�rnenL\ he States. Water 1 (Ludwzgza peploides) nrnrose (Eclip�a prostr<:ta) Wh·t and Pr tliPta \ (Ac_acza Jarneszana), i�k1y 0s OR NOT? among othe es NATIVE native plants according r_ s, are to bot s s New South W�les, but north otfu t in BYTIMLOW der they turn into foreign bor. weed ; her plants under a cloud include � 1 Urena lobata), Ures�a urr ( Vernonia (Ver no cinerea) and Crab's-eye (Abrus nia rzus. . p recat0- ' native and what is not. Many of Aus­ ) . Th e pro bi em 1s compounde d tralia's 'native' plants and animals are pl�nts with both native and exotic Oby lat10�s, such as (Tribulu� PU· also found naturally on other continents, restrzs) Caltrop and (probably) yno r. 1 especially Asia, and although we dactylon) Couch (C �e011 assume that most of them reached Aus­ . tralia by natural means thousands or This problei:n of _origin is particular\ millions of years ago, the possibility is aet.�te for manne life. Ships have bee� 1 there that some of them are exotic plying the seas for thousands of years species brought here by people, either and many barnacles, worms, shellfish by ancient mariners from Asia, or by �nd �eaweeds have n� doubt been hitch­ European explorers and early settlers, ing ndes on hulls for Just as long. Many USTRAL!ANS CHERISH operating in the years before the first of the sea _creatures we see in our waters today, which we assume to be native their native animals and plants and nature surveys were undertaken. but But seldom do Botanists in the 19th century were which occur in seas elsewhere, may well detest exotic invaders. be foreign invaders, brought here bv this love-or-hate rela­ often confused by weeds that had they realise that Macassans, Lapitan sailors, explorers rests on shaky ground; that spread afield so fast they seemed to be , tionship or by other forgotten visitors. The biologists often don't know what is native plants. Most of this uncertainty

nt an adornme \ Papuans of Crab's-eye to their tools, and this plant may well have entered Australia as � and Aborigines glued the colourful seeds i I down from N ew Gu nea a such implements. In 1898, on Murray Island (Mer), the anthropologist William Haddon obtained a bone dagger traded carried these seeds. 2 00 J999- 0 24 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER sf Native Gooseberry is classified as a native plant in Australila, yet some Aboriginal groups who harvest the fruits have no traditional name for the plant, implying recent arrival.

Am_e1:ican biologist James Carlton (Williams . College) coined the label 'cryp�oge111c' for species whose origin rem�ms doubtful. "In the absence of a fossil re�ord", he wrote, "for thousands ?f species o� shelf-dwelling (neritic, 111shore) manne organisms that now occur transoceanically or interoceanical­ ly, and in habitats wherever ships have gone or oysters have been moved their categorization as 'cryptogenic' �eems inevitable." If these species are com­ mon, we may be profoundly underesti­ mating the scale of exotic invasions. Chad Hewitt of CSIRO in Hobart has drawn up a list of over 100 cryptogenic r species f om _Ausli-alian seas, including crustaceans, Jellyfish, shellfish, even a fish. Among the brown algae, he classi­ fies seven species as exotic and 36 as cryptogenic. In other words, Australia has somewhere between seven and 43 exotic brown algae. Hewitt suggests that some of Australia's best-known marine dwellers could be exotic, including the abundant Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) and the Edible Mussel (Mytilus edulis planulatus). There are hundreds of plants, inverte­ brate� and fungi that belong in the cryp­ togemc basket. Among the more primi­ tive o'.ganisms, those neglected by tax­ onomists, the uncertainty is tremen­ dous. With regard to the freshwater algae, for example, Tim Entwisle (National Herbarium of New South Wales) told me he couldn't even take a stab at what percentage he thought were na�i"'.e versus introduced by human activity. Most of the mushrooms that sprout on our lawns should also be con­ sidered cryptogenic: they are found overseas, grow mainly in man-made environ_ments (lawns and paddocks), �nd th�1r spores either came here in pot­ tmg s01l or blew in on air currents. The Mour�in?" Gecko (Lepidodactylus Yam (Dioscorea pentaphylla) ed places. The lack of specialised insects lugubrzs) 1s another candidate. It is well Five-leaf Looses­ been listed as an endangered feeding on herbs such as Purple known overseas as a traveller and its has salicaria) suggests recent species in Queensland, although it's trife (Lythrum distribution in northern Quee�sland is in Australia, although it does not so patchy, and so dependent upon hous­ probably just an old islander crop gone arrival important aesthetic prove exotic status. DNA fingerprinting es, that I believe it to be an exotic invad­ wild. There's an biolo­ well. When I visit Fras­ could also help. In the meantime, er, _even though reptile books list it as issue at stake as to practise and see Emilia (Emilia sonchi­ gists and naturalists ought native. er Island the assumptions they folia) sprouting on the dunes, I want to more care in D�es it matter how we classify such In Australia today, plenty of exotic speci know if I am looking at a wild flower or a make. es? Yes it does. Water Primrose pests are masquerading as wildlife-and and Swamp Foxtail (Pennisetum weed. vice versa. • al Pecuroides) Fortunately, the status of many cryp- q are sold by native nurs­ by enes as indigenous plants, and land­ togenic species could be resolved scape more scholarship. Surveys of marine life rehabilitators would like to use species Further Reading alt-tole:a t (Cotula could show whether cryptogenic Carlton, J.T.,1996. Biological invasions and cryptogenic � � Waterbuttons to harbours oronopifolza) to reclaim degraded mud­ are widespread, or confined species. Ecology 77(6): 1653-1655. fl exotic origins). The journals ats, but each of these plants may well (implying consultant b stra­ early botanists and explorers some­ Tim Low is an environmental / a weed. Water Lettuce (Pistia of nature writer: His latest book, Feral zotes) times help by mentioning cryptogenic and has been targeted for biocontrol Sowthistle future (Penguin, 1999), looks at crypto­ on the assumption exotic yet it plants such as Common that it's in remote, unchart- genic spedes. may be a native, at least in the Top End. (Sonchus oleraceus)

NAT 25 URE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 Between your toes and in your hair and bathers could b� the remains of Himalayan-sized towered mountains that once _ over ancient Antarctica.

HILE ENJOYlNG THE W� water and sparkling sands of the Gold Coast, and numerous other beachesW along Australia's east coast, you robably won't spare much thoug�t for ihe harsh chill and icy expanse of d1sta�t Antarctica. Yet, between your toes and m our hair and bathers could be �he ;.emains of Himalayan-si�ed moun�ms that once towered over ancient Antarctica. Although most of the sand on our beaches is quartz, there are also darker minerals that may be concentrated by wave action into noticeable patch�s. Some of these minerals, such as r_ut1le, zircon and monazite, are econo_m1cally valuable and are mined to prov1?� the raw materials for paint, furnace lmmgs, mantles for gas lamps etc. These same minerals also provide clues that help geologists trace the origins_ of the sand. Rutile zircon and monaz1te often con­ tain sn{all amounts of uranium-not enough to warrant any health concerns from a day at the beach, but enough to be measured on sensitive instru­ ments. Being large, heavy GOLD and unstable, uranium atoms are naturally radioactive and decay over time COAST at a slow and steady rate to form smaller, stable lead through the south-eastern highlands CHILLS?BY KEITH SIRCOMBE atoms. Thus, if from south of Sydney, across to the we measure the Snowy Mountains and into centi·al and amount of ura­ western Victoria. While these sources 1 i nium and lead for the sand are fairly obvious, sand fro°i in a mineral grain, we can calculate the an even older age group, 550 to �50 n age of tpat �� mineral. Basically the more lion years old ' also occurs. Unlike t lead, the older the mineral. And because other two group , however, the1 .e ai·e no sand comes . .in from the weathering and suitable rock that match th 1s age , erosion of solid rocks, the age of an indi­ e nea res 1 yidual south-eastern Au tralia. (Th grain of sand gives the age of the possibility are rocks around Broken Hi.1 1 igneous or metamorphic rock in which are originally it and west of Adelaide, but these at�i formed. ally The 550-to- Whe!1 samples much older again.) of rutile, zircon and million-year-old grains of sand 1\st monaz1te from r � along the east coast were have come f om somewhere else an ai analysed for their uranium-lead three . ages, hence labelled 'exotic'. c mam groups were found. The first . e e oti group ranges r Looking in more detail, th � f om 100 to 375 million sand proportJo 05 1 years old, which grains occur in varying ·e is the ame age as along the entire east coastline but ai igneous and metamorphic rocks 0\st around in and most common on the central c the New England region north Newcastle of beaches, in particular ju t north of �tli through to Towns 1101 r ville. The castle on Stockton Beach. Farther se_c�nd group ranges f om of mi)hon years old, which 375 to 550 more sand grain match the ages matches the age rocks r aiea nd of igneous and metamorphic f om the New England _- �he rocks seen farther south they are more ltke 26 000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER !999-2 Above: Although perhaps thousands of miles from their wintry homes, visitors to the Gold Coast may actually be walking on bits of Antarctica. Right: A typical coastal cliff of Hawkesbury Sandstone. The wavy patterns indicate the size and flow direction of the river that deposited the sand around 240 million years ago.

rocks Cromthe south-eastern highlands. Generally beach sand moves slowly northward along the coast, pushed along by waves from the south and south-east. Therefore, whateve trib r is con­ uting lo the central coast sand has to be nearby. For any Sydney-sider, or even a know­ le dgeable tourist s the answer would _eem obvious. Syd'ney tiful is built on a beau­ white sandstone known as the B�w kesbury Sand tone. The sand in this sandsto t ne was left by a large river hat used to flow i across the Sydney area ��ou�d 240 illion aniu rn_ years ago. The dark, m-beanng minerals are also found

NA TURE AU STRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 27 JI

Minerals such as zircon, rutile and mo typically. found concentrate ��� are d in darker sand as bands of beach revealed here in a section of a sand-dune on Fraser Island. Th minerals also lend clues as to th r e o igin 0te the sand.

in this rock and have revealed the 8 , dominance _of 550-to-750-million-yea:�e ages een m the nearby beaches-e ? 1 dence that the erosion of the Hawk v,. ne is providing bury Sandsto some of 1is- ' sand of the central coast. Thus we a e one te� closer to �he ultimate so urce�� ' the exotic sand grams, but the next ques­ tion is: where did the sand in th Hawkesbury Sandstone come from? e

HE PATTERNS OF RIPPLES AND WAVESI N Tthe Hawkesbury Sandstone, which can often be seen m coa ta! cliff and road cuts in and around Sydney, indic ate the river that created them flowed from the south-we t and was unlike anything in Australia today. Indeed, similar and patterns are found in modern-day river like the Brahmaputra River in eastern India and Bangladesh. This is a large river, over 2,000 kilometre long, drain­ ing the lofty Himalayan Mountain and with a discharge volume that rates it among the top ten rivers in the world today. Assuming a similar continent­ spanning scale for the 240-million-year­ old river that formed the Hawkesbury Sandstone, it would have had a vast

0 z :l z g � . As well as providing material for beautiful scenery, the beach sands of eastern Australia also tell an intriguing story about their origin

999-2000 ER I 28 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMM --

The Cook Ice Shelf off George v Land in Antarctica. The rocks now buried by this _ ice may have been the ultimate source of some of the sand on the beaches of eastern Australia.

catchment area that covered south-east­ indicates their common history prior to These were deposited in the Hawkes­ ern Australia with possible headwaters the break-up of Gondwana. However bury Sandstone in and around present­ well into the present Southern Ocean. there are some features unique to day Sydney. When Gondwana broke up, However, 240 million years ago the Antarctica that point to it as being the Australia slowly drifted north, taking the Southern Ocean didn't exist and Aus­ ultimate source of some of the sand in Hawkesbury Sandstone with it. The tralia was joined to Antarctica as part of the Hawkesbury Sandstone and thus, in beaches along the east coast eventually the supercontinent Gondwana. Some­ turn, much of Australia's east coast. In accumulated as sand was eroded from where along the course of this river was isolated mountains among Antarctica's nearby rocks, including the Hawkes­ the original source of the exotic sand glaciers there is evidence for rocks aged bury Sandstone, and the waves on the grains. between 550 to 750 million years old. beaches mixed the sand and slowly car­ It is possible that the grains may have Unfortunately the icesheet that covers ried it north. come from an earlier round of 'recycling' most of the continent obscures any large So, for those people who like to think in south-eastern Australia. Some older extent of these rocks, and the possible they are escaping their cold wintry sediments among the south-eastern location of the headwaters of the river homes for the tropical pleasures of the highlands also contain the exotic grains, that formed the Hawkesbury Sandstone more northerly beaches, think again. and these could have contributed to the now sits beneath a kilometre of ice. Antarctica may be under your feet. • Hawkesbury Sandstone just as the Although the ice may, for the moment at Hawkesbury Sandstone contributes to least, prevent a conclusive test for the Further Reading the modern beach. However, two prob­ origin of the sand, it doesn't block the Rust, B.R. & Jones, B.G., 1987. The HawkesburySand­ lems count against this. First, these whole picture. Just beneath the vast stone south of Sydney, Australia: Triassic analogue for older sediments are so intermingled expanse of the East Antarctic icesheet, the deposit of a large, braided river. 1. Sedimentary with younger-aged (375-to-550-million­ and detectable by sonar from the sur­ Petrology 57(2): 222-233. year-old) rocks that sand derived from face, are the remnants of a large range of Library, the_ as the Gamburtsev Siever, R., 1988. Sand. Scientific American region contains both groups of mountains known W.H. Freeman & Co.: New York. grams and the younger grains are domi­ Subglacial Mountains. Around 280_ mil­ �ant. This arrangement of ages is seen lion years ago these mountams may Sircombe, K.N., 1999. Tracing provenance throug_h the in samples from the southern end of the have been as large as the present isotope ages of littoral and sedimentary detntal zircon, coastline and in sediments below the Himalayas and at the heart of Gond­ eastern Australia. Sedimentary Geology 124: 47-67. Hawkesbury Sandstone, but the wana. Over time erosion crea_ted sand nv rs that Veevers J.J. 1994. Case for the Gamburtsev Subglacial Hawkesbury Sandstone itself and the that was carried by numerous � by mid-Car­ ce ams and Mountains �f East Antarctica originating _ ntral beaches are clearly dominated drained away from the moun� of an intracratonic basin. Geolo­ by regions such boniferous shortening �he exotic grains. The south-eastern into the other Gondwanan gy 22: 593-596. edii:nents Africa and India. t may have been a contributor, as uzzl t it seems the st. Although the final piece of the p � Sircornbe studied t�e origfn of east­ S� y wer n't. the bigge the ice, it Dr Keith cone!, the exotic grams� 111 the south­ awaits discovery beneath ern Australian sediments, mclud1!1g beach eastern that formed the Hawkes­ as part of his PhD t�ests at the sediments had to have originally seems the river sands, Aus­ e f_rom was also one of_ th� Research School of Ear�h Scie_nces, ��� somewhere else too. The pat- bury Sandstone nd it ca1 - University. He 1s �urrently _ns 1n the Gondwanan rivers. The s� _ _ tralian National p0 se sedimentary rocks also great m the continuing research at the G�ological Su�­ 1nt tO a ried came from eroded mountams_ the ori­ we source lying to the south- m luded some vey of Canada, this �irne loo�ing at t- towarcls Antarcti heart of Antarctica and � sed1rn�ntary r �cks Th ca. monaz1te that. had gin of sand in anci,ent �astern lia and rutile zircon and the tundra of the Canadian Arctic. Anta� margins of Austra 750 million years ago. amidst ct,ca share a lot of geology that form�d ,550 to 29 NAT URE AU STRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 -

The Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby is now so rare and elusive in south-eastern Australia that it has been nicknamed 'The Shadow'. CHASING SHADOWS BY DAVID TAGGART,JAMES RESIDE & RAZ MARTIN

ANJO PATrERSON WOULD SURELY CRINGE WERE HE TO REVISIT the setting of his famous poem ''The Man from Snowy River". B Today, the water flowing down the Snowy is a mere trickle compared to former times; much of the land has been logged; and many of the resident animals have dramatically declined. The Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby (Petrogale penicillata) is one such animal that used to frequent "the cliffs and crags that beetled overhead". In fact, this rock-

Left: Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies are incredibly agile, favouring habitat that provides access to steep cliffs and complex rock escarpments within which they den. In the past animals were often observed on rocky ledges and overhangs, similar to that pictured here, where they spent considerable amounts of time basking, particularly in the early morning and late afternoon. Above: N�tting Tammar Wallabies at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in order to locate a suitable female to act as a foster mother for the endangered Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby pouch young.

NATURE AUST RALI A SUMMER 1999-2000 31 BRUSH-TAILED ROCK-WALLABY Petrogale penici/lata

Classification . . within Aust.). Family Macropodidae, genus Petroga/e (15 spp.

Identification tendmg· to ru f ous Medium-sized wallaby, about 1.2 m total length. Brown above, . . . white. White on rump and grey on shoulders. Chest and belly fur paler, sometimes brown to bla k. cheek stripe and black dorsal head stripe. Feet and paws dark . � tip with a Distinctive tail (greater than half its total length) that darkens toward prominent brush.

Habitat and Distribution open Suitable rocky areas within rainforest gullies, wet a�d dry �clerophyll forest, woodland and semi-arid country. Rocky outcrops with multiple escape routes and numerous ledges, caves and crevices preferred . Found on both sides of Great Dividing Range from southern Qld to Gram�ians i� western Vic. In !he past 150 years, undergone an extensive range reduction, with only 2 populations now located west of Great Divide.

Behaviour Reputedly inquisitive, they emerge soon after dusk to forage. Diet predominantly grasses and forbs, but also leafy material. Seeds, fruit and flowers eaten when available. Prefer sites with a northerly aspect, as they enjoy sunning themselves in morning and evening.

Reproduction Very little published information. Mating and births can occur all year round (gestation about 30-35 days). Pouch life about 200 days with young weaned at about 290 days. Mothers typically produce 1 offspring annually. Females sexually mature at about 18 months.

Status Vulnerable nationally, but critically endangered in Vic., southern NSW and ACT.

wallaby was once so common through­ decline can be reversed rapidly. out the mountainous areas of south-east­ Currently in the wild t·hree popula­ ern Australia that in 1908 more than tions of fewer than about 8-12 individu­ 92,500 skins were sold by one Sydney als are located along the steep rocky fur trader alone. Unfortunately those gorges of the upper reaches of the days have long gone and the cliffs and Snowy River; and in the Victoria Range, crags are all but empty of rock-walla­ within the Grampians National Park, a bies; a direct result of the demand for population of less than six literally hang pelts and, later, the arrival of the Euro­ on by the skin of its teeth ... or, rather, pean Fox and other introduced preda­ feet. Fortunately for these animal , they tors and competitors. are superbly adapted for 'life on the The Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby is now edge', with extensive granulations on so rare and elusive in south-easternAus­ the soles of their rubber-like feel, pro­ tralia that it has been nicknamed 'The viding them with tremendous grip and Shadow' after the main character in a amazing agility in the rugged terrain in 1960s children's book (The story of Shad­ which they persist. In addition, their ow the rock wallaby, by Leslie Rees). bushy black tail allows them to balance This species is one of about 15 rock-wal­ as they move quickly and surely over laby species in Australia but the only their precipitous habitat. one to occur in the south-east. It is cur­ With widespread decline and habitat rently listed as vulnerable nationally, but fragmentation acros its rang , lhe main within Victoria, southern New South threat to the continued urvival of lhe Wales and the ACT, where there are less Brush-Lail now appears to be lhe ucces­ than 40-50 individuals spread across sive extinction of the remaining mall four sites, the species is considered crit­ ically endangered. The south-eastern Female Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby with young populations of the Brush-tailed Rock­ at foot. Young are weaned at approximately wallaby are likely to become extinct 40 weeks of age and don't reach sexual within the next few years unless the maturity until an age of 18-20 months. 000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER J999-2 32 33 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 2000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER J999- Top left: Tammar Wallabies were selected as a surrogate species for rearing Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies because of similarities in size and length of lactation. Bottom left: The Yellow-footed Rock-wallaby; the second of the surrogate species being used to rear the endangered Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby pouch young. isolated colonies following natural disas­ ters such as fire, disease and drought. In addition, the abundance of predators particularly Foxes and feral Cats, result� in unnaturally high levels of mortality in the young. This in turn reduces migra­ tion between isolated colonies and the likeliho?� of the Brush-tail successfully recolo111s111g areas where populations have recently become extinct.

AN A1TEMPT TO RESCUE THIS PECIES from the edge of extinction, we and I r other scientists f om a diverse range of disciplines formed the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby Recovery Team. Our aim is to ensure the survival of the species in the wild, using predator control and a radical breeding technique that rapidly builds up numbers in captivity for rein­ troduction back into suitably protected habitat. Extensive predator-control measures have already been implemented in the Grampians National Park, where 43 kilo­ metres of tracks surrounding the Brush­ tai!ed Rock�wallaby colony are being baited fort111ghtly. At the Snowy River sites, "where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough", the baiting effort is even more intensive, with 79 kilometres of tracks and trails baited monthly. Now to catch your animal. In an exten­ sive trapping program during 1996 and 1997, we caught nine animals (two males and seven females) to establish captive­ breeding colonies. One male and two females were sent to Adelaide Zoo which_ has over 100 years experienc� breedmg and maintaining rock-walla­ Immediately prior to cross-fostering, the female Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby and soon-to-be bies. The others were sent to Healesville surrogate mother (in this case a Tammar Wallaby) are anaesthetised. The whole procedure Sanctuary in Victoria. takes less than one to two minutes. Note the difference in coat colour between the Brush-tail Tammar on the left. . We then designed an innovative cap­ on the right and the tiv�-breeding strategy, called cross-fos­ tenng, t� accelerate breeding in female further young, which in turn can be fos­ As soon as the fostered young are weaned, their surrogate mothers are Br�sh-ta1led Rock-wallabies. Cross-fos­ tered off to another Tammar or Yellow­ r tenng uses foster females from another foot foster mum. Brush-tails normally removed f om the enclosure and they species to rear Brush-tailed Rock-walla­ only produce one offspring annually, grow to maturity in the presence of by P�uch young. It involves transferring however by using cross-fostering tech­ other Brush-tails only. All the signs to �he tmy Brush-tails (often as small as a niques we can increase the rate to six to elate suggest that social interaction and Jelly bean and less than seven days old) eight young per year. breeding behaviour are normal. �om the pouch of their natural mother Does cross-fostering leave the young This is the first time that cross-foster­ mto the pouch and onto a teat of the fos­ Brush-tails confused as to what species ing has been applied to the conservation t r to care­ of an endangered marsupial species. � mother. For foster species we chose they actually are? Not according t e Tammar (Macropus eugeniz) at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve The ability to breed so many Brush­ d Wallaby takers an Yellow-footed Rock-wallaby (Petro­ (ACT), where the program is being Lri­ tailed Rock-wallaby young in such a gale xanthopus), both Upon leaving the pouch, the young short space of time is a r al victory for _ of which are easily aled. this species and bodes well for its future accessible and breed captivi spend their days bounding around the a d well in ty recovery. The Recovery T eam is cur­ n for which much of the basic infor� rocks and tree branches just like any . any­ rently preparing a reintroduction plan m¥ on on reproduction is known. other young Brush-Lail, which, if h their _more seden­ for the species, and examining areas for � tr�nsfer of pouch young frees the thing, must confuse B �s -tail mothers! And w_1II foster-b_recl suitable release sites. We hope to start th mothers from having to nurse tary foster reintroducing Brush-tails into the East 0ung Brush-tails recog111se their own kmcl, en�{} for eight to ten months and wild? Gippslancl area within the next two to es th em to cycle again and produce when it comes to breeding in the NATURE AU 35 STRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000

Top: The author preparing to transfer a young Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby into the pouch of an anaesthetised Tammar Wallaby-soon to be a foster mother. Middle: Preparing to insert the teat of the foster mother into the mouth of the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby pouch young during the cross-fostering process. This can be done on pouch young as small as a kidney bean, when less than one gram in weight. Bottom: A Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby pouch young (approximately 25 grams) moments after its attachment to a teat in the pouch of a Tammar Wallaby foster mother. Note that the eyes of the pouch young are closed at this stage.

Far left: An adult female Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby. Note the rufous coat, and long brushy tail after which the species was named. The tail helps provide balance as the animal moves across its precipitous habitat.

three years. Although we still have a long way to go before it can be removed from the endangered list, for the first time since European settlement of Aus­ tralia, we can say that the future of The Shadow is looking bright! • Corporate sponsorship is now urgently required to continue and expand the breeding program, maintain existing baiting programs, and to prepare sites for reintroduction of captive-bred stock. Interested parties can contact either David Taggart (03 9344 4346) or Jim Reside (03 5152 6367).

Further Reading Lunney, D., Law, B. & Rummery, C., 1997. An ecolog­ ical interpretation of the historical decline of the brush­ tailed rock-wallaby, P. penicillata, in New South Wales. Aust. Mamm. 19(2): 281-296.

Short, J., 1982. Habitat requirements of the Brush­ tailed Rock-wallaby, Petrogale penicillata in New South Wales. Aust. Wild/. Res. 9: 239-246.

Short, J. & Milkovits, G., 1990. Distribution and status of the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby in south-eastern Aus­ tralia. Aust. Wild/. Res. 17: 169-179.

Taggart, D.A., Schultz, D. & Temple-Smith, P.D.,1997. Development and application of assisted reproductive technologies in marsupials: their value for conservation of rock-wallabies. Aust. Mamm. 19(2): 183-190. Dr David Taggart is a research fellow with the Zoology Department at the Universityof Melbourne and with the Conservation and Research Unit at the Zoological Parks and Gardens Board of Victoria, Jim Reside runs an environrnental consulting business called Wildlife Unlimited, and Raz Martin is a wildlife officer with tlie Department of Natural Resources and Environment in Bairnsdale, Victoria. All are members of the Brush-tailed Rocli-wallaby Recovery Team. Jim is Chairman of the team, David is responsible for the development and appli­ cation of cross-fostering techniques for the species, and Raz maintains the baiting pro­ gram and monitors the remaining wild colonies in the East Gippsland area.

NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 37 The salt-marsh mosquito Aedes vigilax feeding on blood. Mosquitoes .not-fnsert all of their mouthparts when they feed; only the thin g stylets are inserted and used to suck out the blood. This species of � mosquito Is a major human pest because of its voracious biting habits lJ! and ability to transmit disease. It is the main transmitter of Ross River armah Forest viruses along much of the Australlan coast.

000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2 38 NATURE A USTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 39 OST OF US KNOW THAT THE the discarded paint tin behind the itchiness following an garage produce adults lhal will be ah�1ost imper�eptible pin­ responsible for outdoor evening biles, prick of pam on our while the midnight bedroom biters ankle,M as we sit in the backyard at an come from adults emerging from wrig­ evening barbecue, is caused by a mo - glers in the drum behind the chicken quito. Likewise we know the annoying shed full of composting liquid manure. buzzing around our pillow in the middle Once we know what species is biting us of the night is also made by a mosquito. and where its 'breeding site' is, we can However, fewer people would be aware then devise appropriate strategies to that the bites are almost certainly from reduce or eliminate that particular habi­ different species of mosquito! tat and thus the nuisance biters them­ So, different mosquitoes are responsi­ selves. Additionally, since not all mos­ ble; does that really matter? It does if I quito species bite humans, and relatively wish to prevent it from happening again, few are major pests or carriers of dis­ or am worried about being infected with ease-causing organisms (pathogens), an a disease-causing organism 0ike Ross accurate identification of the mosquito River virus, dengue, or even malaria). in question is important. The first thing I need to know is which Australia has more than 350 species of species of mosquito bit me. r mosquito in 15 genera. Of most concern All adult mosquitoes derive f om lar­ to humans are some of the Aedes, vae (wrigglers) that live in aquatic habi­ Anopheles and Culex species. These tats, but the nature of those habitats include the pest species Aedes notoscrip­ varies dramatically and can be charac­ tus (from backyard containers), Anophe­ teristic for many species. For example, les annulipes (from rural irrigation) and the wrigglers in the pot-plant saucer or Culex quinquefasciatus (from domestic

sewage), and the disease carriers Ae_des aegypti (dengue fever) and Aedes vigdax ' (Ross River virus), Anopheles faraull 5 , (malaria) and Culex am1ulirostris (R?� River and Murray Valley encephahh5 > viruses). . , The y of specie, number and diversit s reflect the diverse nature of the -�u · tralian environment and the many dil1� ­ 01; · ent aquatic niches mosquitoes exp 1 These range from extensive mai'.grove d and l salt-marsh habitats, through ,n anls ' ?illabong_ snow-mel_t P_ ° d s, temporary �1e 111 the and r aw-Ji d highland ranges 00 depressions outback fl · on . arid n1 plams, to slreams,de rock pools 111· te · perate forests, tree holes and pandanu, 1 axils in tropical (oresls. _ t ie When emerge fi om . l mosquitoes ing aquatic pupal case as terrestrial fly 11e adults, they require sustenance. S_�! d ai e energy and protein reserves are c 't 1 Most mosquitoes r stage - ' obt ain· th e1r· b lood meals from warm-blooded over f om the aquatic larval � these U ranotaenia animals ' however some ' like e mosqui ·t oes, f eed these are generally quite limited. En ' e on amphibians such as this Wood Frog (Rana daeme/1). 181 lo fly is derived from sugars, and 11 40 2000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER J999- of a Cu/ex annulirostris e The life cycle and the many types of (wrigglers), and female mosquitoes obtain these ma! 'contain rs', n mosquito, including eggs, larvae cover the range of a imals A bite from one of these �om plants (nectars, fruits, saps, plant mosquito e e pupae and adult. e en d animals are th with tiss� s and honeydew), oft on a daily available. Warm-blood mosquitoes could leave you infected e e most mos­ normal source of blood for n River or Murray Valley encephalitis. basis. Mal mosquitoes f ed only on es bei g Ross plant products, but for a female to pro­ quitoes, with some mosquito e attracted to certain verte­ duc eggs, she needs something more particularly e ee n hosts. Ther are bird f ders substa tial ... blood. brate Culex eders (many spp.) and mammal fe Mating usually occurs shortly after Aedes a few that e spp.), but only n adult em rgence from the pupa, and the (many e s. e a prefer ntial attraction to huma femal� mates only once in her life (the hav e e e prefer n ere are even a f w sp ci s that ma!�-impla ts a 'plug' of sperm that will Th feeding on e e a cold drink on a hot night, f i:t1hse all eggs to be laid thereaft r). and fish (such as e reptiles, amphibians e Without blood, most female mosquito s have e merg d from annot lay eggs, and those that can may mudskippers that fay burrows). only one batch. The nectar meals their can have charac- e Just as mosquitoes e that sustain the mosquito in her s arch e , th y can also e e tic hosts for fe ding e !0r th ess ntial blood meal do not pass teris es for fe ding. int have characteristiAedec tims o the gut but are stored in the crop e spp.) can be d Som (mostly n �re passed through to the gut as e e as octurnal, �� e e d as diurnal, som uired. T�is l av s the gut empty and d scrib e wn and f � n rs as cr puscular (da ab· _e to receive the vital blood meal when a d othe e may also tend e ough th la�ter e 1t is fou e g dusk), alth e Son nd. If th mosquito liv s lon e n night hours. !n o e to bit well i to th e n gh, s�e may go through sev ral will bile in th ope � f � e e daytime feeders e 111 b 1� -fe ding and gg-laying cycles. n to congr gate e e n but most prefer ood com s from all mann r of a i- full su , 41 NATU RE A USTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 - e ea Left: Australia has over 350 n ' s es a e thos of �r t­ species of e e e rtu ist peci ) r mosquitoes e s if w v �­ , oppo e e a e o but not all of them are s a h umid ar a and bit es o e pot nti l inf ction f pest s h dy e e s c nc rn for th e fact some e this e e night-tim bit r will t a e in lik Toxorhynchitis , ture n ai _· .Som . a a s anim l pathogens. Th � mo e · d rk­ hum n with e o o are actually helpful. The larvae �qulto e nly 111 �e ·l. h f an ese z on t1c of this bit prim� e e n:i y of th so-call d . . giant ess e e �ll1 \. u1 �fd \� th ir �r e se mozz1e (its body can reach over 1 n , whil o� , s w 1 e s ularly th arboviru s 2 m·i1i· e 1 e ses 11f ct10n , Partic long) eat the larvae of other 1me1r s th mght prog s . e vi.ruses · Yellow mosquito s. '1 activity a e s d born ) ' w1th . . e s s es a mo t. con­ (arthropo - e a e Right: An Anopheles farauti e mo quito th t hav e an nc b_ mg mosquito h Tho a s e s Africa d South Am as s thos mo t fev r in e os oes concentrated the blood cells fro tact with human are l o e e re m qU1! m its me ss a s th classic exampl wh passing a1 and e or pa on p thog�� . e e s is an unwanted droplet of flu lik ly to. pick up e s ee monk ys pick up v1 id. 8 . e a e e e ca1 I i 1 . that f d on te ��e getting rid of the unwanted / dmg th y r comp t nt e n e I fluid, the m I prov1 e e lat r pass it o wh n t y . o . t se ses such as malaria and d ngu do and •1 s ab I e to con t·inue fee d"ing, ingesting u qu1 o Di a e ss ans p 1 0 e e a a s ?� d hum . e twice its own weight olv oth r nim l a�d ar s . e . ee o · . not inv f Not all mo quito s that f d n 111 f ct - to human via _ al ticu a e s e from human P es a� e s a e abl to pas on t� s es e squito t h d animal r mo quito , but th mo s e e e of b10- logical and environmental a s e pathogen . Th r are a numb r factors t attack both birds and m mmal (th determine whether th � a species of m i individu osq � 1 to or an al of that species can b· involve? in transmiss i?� . of pathoge e e mclude susceptib1hty n: Th s to infecti and m�ltiplicatio� of the o · pathogen in th: mosquito (genetically and physiological­ ly controlled), longevity of the m e osquito (surviving th incubation period e of the pathog n in the mosquito) and abun­ dance (and thus likelihood of biting). e Wh n a mosquito takes in a blo e od meal, it may ing st a number of bloo e d­ born micro-organisms. If an arboviru n or malaria parasite is i the blood, and the mosquito is susceptible, the pathogen will infect the gut, variou internal organs, and eventually the sali­ vary glands. Once the salivary glands are infected, the pathogen can be inject­ ed into a new vertebrate host during feeding. The mosquito can be infectiou for the rest of its life (perhaps another week or two), during which time it may pass on pathogens at three or four more feeds. But the critical issue is whether a particular mosquito species and its host MOSQUITOES are susceptible to the pathogen. Th�., HIV, influenza, measles and hepahh e Classification viruses, and myriad oth r micro-organ· n e cannot Class lnsecta, order isms that may be i g sted but Diptera, family Culicidae. More than 3,000 spp. worldwide and to be over 350 spp. in Australia. infect the mosquito, cannot go on transmitted and are simply digested or blood Distribution and Habitat excreted with the remnants of the Found meal. in all regions of the world except the Antarctic. In Australia they occur e Likewise some pathogens ar trans· in all regions of all States, with regional, climatic and habitat characteristics t e es but n? for most species and a restricted distribution for many, mitted by c rtain mosquito , although some are e alan found throughout Australia. others. For exampl , human m � organisms can be carried b� a number e Anopheles �t Biology sp cies of mosqmtoe. s, but n Culex A e des s e ause Eggs laid as single units or clutches of 100 or more by any or specie b .c (depending on species) on e n . is or near a water surface (depending on species) they are not susceptibl ; de gue vu u and hatch within 2-3 days, or after es ed flooding. lmmatures (larvae and pupae) transmitted by one speci of 1 et are aquatic but air-breathing, and habitats e vary from vast (Aedes aegypti) sp ci �­ swamps to temporary roadside pools to small leaf axils, from but not other hypersaline littoral nc ��a rock pools to rainwater storage tanks to sewerage treatment mosquito; and Murray Valley � �p b' ponds. Larvae feed on live tis is s e ns pnmanlY l and decaying organic matter on the water surface, in tran mitt d to huma the water column and on the bottom Culex annulirostris. One unusual_ of the various habitats (depending on species . hie �: and situation), and duration s, "". � of larval stage is approx. 1-2 weeks but again varies howev�r, is Ross_ River vu-u with species and conditions. n en squitoe 5 in Pupae are non-feeding but motile, and duration of fou d 111 many differ t mo · pupal stage is 2-3 days. e n Aedes, A I r various gen ra, includi g 11�f0\a­ les, Culex e the 1 and othr rs, althou�h 1 Adults feed on plant o es 101 juices (for energy), and blood (females only for egg tion of a virus f om a m squito d? a· development) from a variety e e 1s caP of vertebrate hosts, depending on mosquito species n cessarily indicate that speci s and host availability. o n Adults may live for 1-3 weeks on average, depending ble f infecting a huma . species and environmental on conditions, and take blood meals and lay eggs every 2-5 days, depending on O IT I THE FEMALE REQU!REME species. Adults disperse from less than 100 m to over S ' : 50 km depending on species. for blood that causes th e pro bleJ1lS, But jusl how do mosquitoes find a b lood or meal? How do they find the gene I e 1�: er? more specific lype of hosl th y P f 42 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 NATURE A 43 USTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 Above: A male (right) and female Cu/ex quinquefasciatus mosquito. Both male and female mosquitoes feed on plant products, but it is only the females that need a blood meal in order to produce their eggs.

Typically, mosquitoes are attracted to their preferred host by chemical c�1es detected downwind of the host. Respir_a· tory products (carbon dioxide) a�d skin emanations (such as lactic acid) are C�r known to be relatively important. j bon dioxide is common to all potent,a hosts so it may be the alerting cue tor mosquitoes· other chemicals Oike b?dy odours) m;y be required for discn1!11· nation between hosts. Octenol. 1r r c _tte example has been identifiedf om ; breath a� an attractant for tsetse ,es. and also some mosquitoes. Howeve) Culex species (typically bi1_-d feed�;J are relatively non-responsive _ to s mammalian odour compared w1th_ Aedes species (mammal feeders). . e Some to ! e1 as mosquitoes appear %i an 'invitation' pheromone when feec g 0 1 The mosquito larvae of Aedes notoscriptus and this attract others to the 11 � : breed in a wide variety of artificial containers ,a common in backyards, including Additionally, phy ical cues of ten1P pot plant bases, blocked gutters, 1� ,;;Y•• tyres. disused pools and vehicle ture, at a hos a They also breed in natural containers such humidity and colour i' as tree hollows. help the mosquito more accurate Y

44 000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2 pective blood meal. get the pro There is most effective 'repellent' chemical avail­ own weight. The distension of the gut much that is unknown about mo quito able, much more so than citronella and (and thus the amount of blood ingested) attraction to particular host . For other 'natural' products. Reports that instance is under nervous control and the mos­ some individual humans are ingestion of vitamin B, garlic and other quito knows when it has had enough, more attractive to mosquitoes than oth­ 'herbal' products will protect against but if these nerves are cut (as has been ers (presumably because of differences bites have no scienti(ic basis. clone in the laboratory) then the mos­ in individual kin 'chemistry', probably Mosquito mouthparts comprise a quito will continue to suck blood until it produced by both internal processes number of cutting tylets that can pene­ (literally) bursts. Reports that holding and external microbial activity), and trate the skin and probe for capillaries. your breath or stretching your skin taut some people seem not to be bitten at all. These blood vessels may be pierced and while a mosquito is feeding will trap the Also, different mosquitoes like to bite entered for direct feeding, or lacerated mosquito in the skin and force it to feed different areas of the body. Some so they leak blood into the tissues and until bursting, should be treated as Anopheles species have been shown to the mosquito can feed from the pool urban myths. be more attracted to the feet, apparently 01aematoma) that is formed. The saliva Most mosquitoes take between two preferring foot odour to respiratory gas. that is discharged during probing and and five milligrams (0.002-0.005 millil­ ('Stinky' Limburger cheese has also feeding dilates the vessels to increase itres) of blood, but they are usually dis­ been shown to attract one Anopheles blood flow and inhibits 'clotting' of the turbed before they become fully species and, perhaps not by coinci­ blood, thus aiding rapid ingestion. The engorged. The disturbed female may dence, the bacteria that produce the itch we (and other animals) get from a then move to another host (same or dif­ smell in feet and cheese are from the mosquito bite is an allergic reaction to ferent species) to continue feeding, pro­ same genus!) At least one Aedes species the saliva. viding an opportunity for multiple infec­ prefers hands . to f�et or L!mburger, The amount of blood imbibed deter­ tions during a 'single' feeding session. while some Tnpteroides species go for mines the number of eggs that can be Although the amount of blood ingested the head and circle the nose-an obvi­ laid. Most mosquitoes are able to great­ by a mosquito may seem small, the mul­ ous (at least for tl1e mosquito) source of ly distend their gut when feeding, and tiplier effect can make this quite signifi­ attractive cues and hopefully blood. Inci­ their elastic-sided body expands and cant. During the peak (summer) mos­ dentally, the commercial products sold stretches so that we can see the reel quito season in Queensland, cattle may as insect repellents do not so much repel colour of their meal. They commonly lose over 150 millilitres per cow per mosquitoes as cover up our attracti�e­ ingest more than their own weight, up to night over a few months, leading to ness as a potential blood host. The pnn­ four times in some species. Those that severe hypersensitivity (allergic reac­ tions), and possibly death from exsan­ cipal active ingredient in m�st of these cannot produce such distensions con­ centrate the blood cells and pass a clear guination and shock. products is diethyl. toluam1de (deet), now with the official name of N,N­ or coloured fluid while feeding so they To find blood hosts, mosquitoes have diethyl-3-methylbenzamide. It is the can still ingest more than twice their to travel greater or lesser distances

. be good the aboratory have been shown to in urban areas, an d in l f oes are a ma10· r pest of the nemat o d e that causes A ully blood-fed adult Aedes notoscriptus. These mosquit major vector for the transmission vect uitoes are a Iso the ors for Ross River and Barmah Forest viruses. These mosq he artworm in Dogs. 45 NATURE A USTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 ulex, in urban areas coi:ie from ith �uman settle on their enviro!1ment. G_ that affect us ;-: ment r depending nearby, and are ��ec1es th�t time immemorial !c/b l Coquillettidia and Mansonia mosquitoes relatively . ' and o �b y sin have become adapted to hvmg w1thm and other polluted nises W associated with the more permanent waters t as� the human environment. The two best �olera�ed by other mosqu generajfy natural wetlands usually have close c�n­ notoscriptus 111 it:s. i are Aedes a�d drams and septic It bre d witli water birds tl at inhabit the site examples tanks, sew e 1 tact Cu/ex quinquefasciatus. Aedes notoscrzp­ ment wor age e tliat visit, and do not ks, and a sol some d tr at or tlie mammals adapted ground e an t . However, Aedes mos­ tus is a native mosquito that has or container situatio Wa er� , have to travel far. habitats to erally s, a bush­ from tree-hole and rock-pool bites inside houses � 0 nd en, associated with temporary an 1 quitoes breeds in clean ters during the er g flood-plain pools may have to artificial containers. It night-in the � she\ land or cans, tyres, roof Notwithstanding b e roolll. many kilometres to find mam­ water in drums, barrels, the above travel Ae es association with ple in urban areas 1 malian hosts, and some salt-marsh � guttering etc., in close will be 'h·�t1 y !le(} humans around the domestic mosquitoe � non. 10-50 kilometres downwind houses, and bites s. This i t will travel and ly the case s Par icular. (altliough such movement is more a dis- home during the late afternoon in small rural tow tlie barbecue. <;:utex urban areas on the s, .0r su� ·, persal activity). early evening-at outskirts � . 1 . quinquefasciatus has been associated coastal regions, where cities. ln Overall, however, most mosquitoes there a e e 1 ine saline wetlands � s�uar. the m squit Aedes vigilax and Aedes campto , oes . r 1ync1"" 1 can b e a severe nuisance to . IN AUSTRALIA peopl e r n"' MOSQUITO-BORNE DISEASES up to ten kilometres from th ti g I habitats. e arv� , These species lay their Malaria beneath salt-marsh plants at th eg (Plasmodium e ed gs I Malaria in humans is caused by parasitic protozoans spp.). The a d�pres�ion �hat is filled monthly b��h; , a local spnng high tides. disease is no longer endemic in Australia but occasional cases occur when In inland areas n Anopheles and passes the billabo�g�, other mosquito bites a traveller infected outside the country freshwater wetla�� i infection on to a local resident. Malaria usually causes severe fevers, but there can and _ 1rng_ated agri�ultu u e annulzrostrzs _r�, C / x be complications that can be fatal. Most of the (few) cases occur in no�thern _ and C�quzllettzdza linealis Australia where there is a greater risk because of the presence of partJCular (111 southern J;'>UStraha) or Coquillettidia Anopheles farauti, xanthogaster , mosquitd species, especially and favourable environmental (m nortliern Australia) Anopheles can conditions, but there are species in all States and malaria has been be a pest to residents within at least five transmitted in southern areas (like Melbourne and Perth). kilometres from the aquatic habitats These species lay batches of egg � 1 Dengue floating rafts on the surface of water Dengue (DEN) viruses cause fever, and muscle and joint pains (and potentially bodies that are typically vegetated. Culei haemorrhage and death). DEN is associated with humans and not other annulirostris can utilise many variationCoquillet­s vertebrates. It is imported with travellers infected elsewhere, and is transmitted in on this general tlieme,but the Australia by a single mosquito, Aedes aegypti. This mosquito breeds exclusively in tidia species have a specific biological , containers in domestic situations and is not found outside Queensland, although it association with emergent reeds from was well known from NSW, NT and WA prior to the 1950s. which the larvae obtain their oxygen (unlike other mosquito larvae that , Ross River and Barmah Forest breathe air from the water sur face viaa Ross River (RR) and Barmah Forest (BF) viruses have been active in all mainland siphon at the end of tlieir abdomen). States, and RR is also known from Tasmania. The viruses are grouped together \ here because they cause a similar syndrome, polyarthritis, which can be USTRALLA CERTAJ LY HAS A RANGEOF I debilitating to the point of precluding normal occupational activities for months to Ainteresting mosquitoes, and it has years. RR is considered to be naturally associated with native macropods an interesting history of mosquito-�orne ' (kangaroos and wallabies), although it appears that horses and humans may be disease. Malaria has been era?1cat�d 1 involved in disseminating the virus; birds do not appear to be important in natural but transmission is still possible in cycles. There is little knowledge of the natural hosts for BF virus; there are some northern regions, and with the many 1 indications that native mammals are involved but birds have not been excluded. he coun· hundreds of cases imported to t 1 The vectors of RR and BF are similar and, as mentioned above, comprise a range try annually it is not surprising there ar� of species; the most important are the salt-marsh Aedes camptorhynchus in Human filan· 1 Aedes vigilax occasional local infections. southern Australia and in southern and northern Australia, and Cu/ex is no longer a _con· annulirostris, Coquillettidia linealis Aedes normanensis asis (elephantiasis) toe and in various inland cern in Australia' although mosqu( regions. are responsible for a dog fil ai ·ias1s . . . vet· (heartworm) which 1s an 1111po r ·tant Murray Valley Encephalitis, Kunjin and Japanese Encephalitis r t1i� erinary concern. A boviruses are Murray Valley encephalitis . osqu1· • (MVE) and Kunjin (KUN) are endemic and annually most common and W1 despre ad m. active with occasional deaths from MVE in the north-west of Australia, and hum�ns 111 Aus· to-borne infections of blic sporadically active in the south-east. Japanese encephalitis (JE) causes many tralia, and tlies� are a se -10�,s thousands of deaths 111 ! ptThe, annually in Asia, has recently been introduced into the Torres many 1 eg10ns . ..,1 healtli. concern MtU. I<>. Strait Islands and Cape York (although possibly only for short durations), and has d.1ca II are most important me Y .. . ·uses, the potential to spread widely through the continent. The viruses are grouped Valley encephalitis and KunJ!11 VII together here as they cause a common syndrome of encephalitis (inflammation of and, 1� �he case which can cause severe fatal the brain), which for MVE and JE can be fatal and, if not, result in brain damage. of Murray Valley encephaht.Is, MVE and KUN are associated principally with inland wetland wading birds (e.g. · However , ' inflammation of the brain. . . ,ses herons) and mosquitoes that proliferate in those habitats. One mosquito in ore Ross River and Barn��h � SI lvllr�hri· particular, Cu/ex annulirostris, which is distributed throughout mainland Australia, g ya cause severe and deb1htat.In _P? and appears to be the major vector for epidemic activity in times of heavy rain and of JOI11t5l r tis (artl1ritis in a number 0;ni flooding when the bird/virus/mosquito cycles proliferate. JE is associated with probably have a greater econ Cu/ex annulirostris ox, on wetland birds· and pigs, and the local is a competent vector for impact on tl1e community (see b this exotic virus. mosquito-bornedis eases). r .1 1 t alia ses e The activity of arboviru ! AuTher has become quite disconcerting. 99 2000 46 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 19 - ;;;; '.\I! 0� ------�:,.______. �� Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are disease carriers and the only ones responsible for the transmission of dengue fever.

have been large numbers of cases of change predict increases in rainfall, Further Reading Ross River virus infection in many tides and temperature for parts of Aus­ Clements, A.N., 1992. The biology of mosquitoes. Vol. regions in the past two decades, and tralia, and such changes have the poten­ 1. Development, nutrition and reproduction. Chapman extraordinary outbreaks of Barmah For­ tial to increase the risk of arbovirus and Hall: London. !Vol. 2. Sensory reception and est viru ; between 1991 and 1998, for transmission by increasing the distribu­ behaviour is in press.I example, almost 40,000 confirmed cases o tion and abundance of mosquitoes, and Kettle, D.S., 1995. Medical and veterinary entomology. f Ross River were reported. Although duration of mosquito and arbovirus sea­ 2nd ed. Centre for Agriculture and Biotechnology (CAB) people have been more aware of arbovi­ son . However, the degree of climate International: Wallingford, UK. ral infection since the 1980s, and detec­ change is uncertain and the ecology of tion and reporting systems have certain­ arbovirus transmission complex. Over­ Laird, M., 1988. The natural history of larval mosquito ly improved, the increase in arbovirus all, it is likely that some areas will have habitats. Academic Press: London. activity during the last 15 years appears increases in arbovirus activity and to be genuine. Russell, R.C., 1993. Mosquito and mosquito-bornedis­ Much of this activity has human infection with predicted climate ease in southeastem Australia. Department of Medical bee� in rural areas, where mosquito change, but risk of increased transmis­ habit Entomology, University of Sydney at Westmead Hospi­ n at has been created with the sion will vary with locality, vector, host tal: Sydney. i creased use of irrigation, and in and human factors. coastal centres where humans have So back at the barbie or in bed, where Service, M.W., 1993. Mosquito ecology. 2nd ed. Elsevi­ b�ilt ever close� to the mosquito's estu­ do ,;.e stand (or lie) with mosquit?es? er: London. anne habitat. Notwithstanding their natural h�bitats . For our Australian arboviruses, there (such as the wetlands we are trymg to Richard Russell is an Associate Professor is no specific treatment even coi_1sb·u_ct), with the Department of Medic_ine, [!ni­ for infection and preserve, enhance an� and the Fou n.ding Direc­ �here are no antiviral as we provide breed(ng s1�es versity of Sydney mfe drugs to cure the for as long tor of the Departr�ent of M_eqical Ento­ ctions. There are no vaccines for mosquitoes with our res1dential, Pathol­ although mology, in the lnst1,tuteof Clinical there has been some research industrial and agricultural development, ogy and Medical Research qt Westme�d l?wards developing one will be with us lo torment He has been involved in vir us. for Ross River mosquitoes Hospital. . Current management hinge on u . Hopefully, however, we can !ear� research on mosquitoes and mosquito­ preve s 111. nt·_ m g m· f eclion by reducing human- more about them, their plac� the envi­ borne disease in Australia for almost 30 mos qu,to of the and has worked s a consultant on o contact through the control of ronment, and the natural h1s�ory years, � m squ e mosquitoes in Austra/1a1 New _Zealand o ,·t o populations and they carry In this way � nal the use of per- pathogens . , � and the Pacific and Asian regions. H� protection measures such as should be able l? better manage � � insect rep . �round us, h established the New S011t�1 Wales Mosqui­ d . e ll ents, protective. clothing, mosquito populations ;\I Surveillance Program an s ply environment a1� s to and Arbovirus od o t slaying indoors during peri- oul damaging the in 1985 for the Health D_ epartment, an

GLOSSY BLACK-COCI

� 0..8 z z :!:J

A male and female Glossy Black-Cockatoo . take time out to preen. Glossy BlackCockatoos form r for life - strong bonds and are thought to pai 200° 50 99 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 19 -

Left: This Glossy Black-Cockatoo nestling from Kangaroo Island is just two to three days old. Right: A male and female Glossy Black­ Cockatoo at their artificial nest box. Honey Bees, possums and other birds all compete with Glossy Black-Cockatoos for suitable nesting sites.

the South Australian Department of Environme_nt, �eritage . and Aboriginal Affairs to identify the likely threats to the Kangaroo Island population and to appropriate management actions, we suspected one of the m_ost pressing problems was a lack of swtable nesting sites. Glossy Black-Cockatoos nest in large hollows in mature eucalypts, which take over 100 years to form. About 50 per cent ofr natural vegetation has been cleared f om Kangaroo Island for agri­ culture and commercial purposes resulting in possible hollow shortag� and competition with other animals that use hollows, such as Little Corellas (Cacatua sanguinea), Yellow-tailed GLOSSY BLACK-COCKATOO Black-Cockatoos ( Calyptorhynchus Calyptorhynchus lathami funereus), Galahs �Cacatua roseica_pilla), (Trzchosu­ Classification Common Brushtad Possums Family rus vulpecula) and feral Honey Bees �acatuidae. Three subspp. based on bill size and geographic isolation: c./. latham,, C. I. erebus I. (Apis melli/era). With the help of volun­ and C. halmaturinus. teers, field biologist Lynn Pedler erected Identification over 80 artificial nest boxes, made from Smallest of the black-cockatoos (Ca/yptorhynchus PVC water pipe and wood. Lynn and fel­ spp.), at about 48 cm. Both males and females have shiny black feathers on the back and wings and a scarlet low biologist Stephen Garnett then pro­ red panel on the black tail, but females have ceeded to record the use of nest boxes black transverse bars �cross this n panel a�d th� red sometimes grades to yellow or orange. Sex of juveniles is a d natural hollows by Glossy Black­ determmed visually by the presence of yellow in tail of females, and by the Cockatoos. They also monitored their colour and abundance of spot� (females have lots of yellow spots on belly, breast, use by other animals to determine if they shoulders and under wmg, whereas males have red spots under wing and spots, if were having an adverse effect on the present on belly, are orange). cockatoos. Predation was another possible cause Habitat and Distribution of breeding failure. Previously we had Open forest and semi-arid woodland, usually in sheoak (Allocasuarina and n (Aquila see Wedge-tailed Eagles Casuarina) Calyptorhynchus audax) habitat, with large eucalypts for hollow-nesting. /. attack and kill fledglings and lathami in south-eastern Aust. (southern Qld to NSW and eastern Vic.), C. /. ad ults, and we found evidence that a Lit­ erebus along central Qld coast, C. I. ha/maturinus on Kangaroo Island. t!e Cor�lla had killed a nestling. In addi­ t10n, hairs found on destroyed nestlings n Food a d eggs matched those of Common Primarily seeds of sheoaks: Al/ocasuarina diminuta (NSW), A. gymnanthera Brushtail Possums. (NSW), A. inophloia (Qld), A. littoralis (NSW, Vic.), A. torulosa (Qld), A. Possums are highly abundant on Kan­ verticillata (NSW, SA), Casuarina cristata (Qld), C. equisetitolia (Qld), C. glauca garoo Island and have increased in num­ recorded eating seeds of Acacia, Angophora, Cal/itris, n (NSW). Also been ?ers si ce _commercial trapping ceased Eucalyptus and Hakea, and larvae of wood-boring insects. m 1950. Bemg arboreal, hollow-dwelling creatu res, they are most likely to pose a Biology threat to Glossy Black-Cockatoos. To in pairs or small groups. Nesting occurs from Jan. to Nov. and exclu Usually observed de possums from both artificial and the birds congregate into large groups after breeding. Probably long lived, in atural for at least � nests, we fitted an iron collar to excess of 20 years. Strong pair bonds, young are dependent on adults he base of all known nest trees and first by parents, then may be cared for by single male, probably a rec 6 months, fed orded subsequent rates of predation. suitor. Females lay 1 egg per clutch, incubation takes about a month, and young �e other factor that may affect the 90 days after hatching. If egg fails or chick dies within first month, female b ty fledge b ib of Glossy Black-Cockatoos to may re-lay. ed on Kangaroo Island is food. Work u�� taken by Gabriel Crowley and Status Step r n to be e Garnett (now at the Depart­ Kangaroo Island population classified as critically endangered. Thought m �nt of Environment of Australia, due to loss of nesting and foraging hab!tat C . and Heritage in declining in other areas a1rns' Q ueens I an d) mcluded a study firewood and ornamental p�rposes. Kangaroo Island populat1?n li k1' for agriculture, Brushta1I g geology, �oil, food quality and by other birds such as Wedge-tailed Ea�les, and Common t! �n preyed on Yellow­ ag g patterns 111 Glossy Black-Cock­ Competition for and use of hollows by Little Corellas, Galahs, at n Possums can deter s. I u dertook a PhD project to Bl�ck-Cockatoos and feral Honey Bees in non-breeding season st�� h tailed or result in death of nestlings. in �/ � fo raging behaviour and feed­ Glossy Black-Cockatoos from using hollows g quireme Gl nts of Kangaroo Island's s Blacks. mi�� yi The aim w_as to deter- f there was a sufficient amount 53 NATURE A USTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 toos only bother to tackle 0 have over 50 per cent o( / ne the seeds that taining a kernel. s con. Occasionally Glossy Black-C o on Kangaroo cka 1 Island have been too feeding on another e r (Allocspecies 0[ sco ded the Slaty Sheoak asuarin heoak riana). mue//e., Feeding on this speciea for short periods of tim ou�-�cc e e ul"b breeding season and may be a r� the to a temporary shortage 0 of Dr�0 �se1 Sheoak seed. However, this may a P ng a period when l o the birds are unde: be pressure to find food and le therefor e able to sample other, possibly less �e quate, food sources. a e-

Pale stripes across the tail feathers of young birds may, like our fingernails, indicate a period of poor nutrition.

Glossy Black-Cockatoos form s�·ong pair bonds and are thought to pair_ for life. They lay one egg per clutch, mamly between February and April but as late as August if these early nesting attempts fail. Only the female brood_s the_egg and the youna0 chick durina which tune male feeds the fem�le, which in turn feeds the chick. The male must there­ ihe forecollect enouah food for himself, and their°chick. The incubao female : ic � period is about 30 days a�d the c 90 days after hatchmg. fledges 1! en By watching individual bird , �tep 11 s tor· and I soon learntthat breec1· mg b ·d of the da),, con· age for about 80 per cent 40 as many as 1 ·. suming the seeds. from. an 1 bird s, by co rnp cones. Non-breec mg daY for only about half t11 e A four-week-old Glossy Black-Cockatoo nestling. This young female will remain dependent on son, forage as many cones. her parents for at least another five months while she learns the complex feeding drill. and eat half 11 ths the winter 1110 Breeding· over t · ia· 1 p·obeJJl1 poses a number of potent th5e and quality of Drooping Sheoak seed before moving on to another. ent weather may threate Inclem 01 � daY available to them. Sheoak cone are about three cen­ an_d the _sh :�e� ch lives of chicks, I 1 hi timetres long and come in a variety of length means there 1s less time HEOAKS, WHICH BELONG TO THE FAMILY e pale colours. The newly produced one are to gather food. We di_scovere� so g Casuarinaceae, are endemic to Aus­ O }11Y 000 S red-brown, then as they age they Sb-ipes across the tail feathei s · ' . ' . . t 0 ernaI1s tralasia. The protein-rich seeds in their become brown and finally grey after birds which m ay, hke ou - fi. 11.a his woody cones provide food for many about three year . Glossy Black-Cocka­ ti T indicate a period of poor n�ti"t Ol1bl to species, from ants to rats and finches, toos elect only the r cl-brown cones ts una e could occur if the father due but only Glossy Black-Cockatoos are which, being the youngest, may be soft­ gather enough food for a clayor O t;·eda· known to extract the seeds from closed er and therefor easier to extract seeds to bad weather or the presence P cones that are still on the tree. Glossy from. They are also particular about tors. Black-Cockatoos forage on only a mall which of the red-brown cone they T of \BI S proportion of the available Drooping choose. Each cone contain between 70 ESPITE THE FUSSY FEEDING�'\ cl ar , tl e Sheoaks on Kangaroo Island, exploiting and 110 seeds, but not all seed contain DGlos y Black-Cockatoos .00d· each patch of trees for a (ew week a kernel. Gabriel found that the cocka- that pair are able to find enoug h g 2000 54 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER I 999- female Glossy Black-Cockatoo An adult at the one of the natural en trance to nesting holl ows roo Island. A sh rtage of on Kanga � nesting suspected as being one of 5 ites was the reasons for the popu I atron . ' s I ow breeding rate.

quality food to successfully fledge young, and, at_ least. at t�e moment, there is en ough sheo?k habitat on I�angaroo Island to sustam the populat1�n. The princip_al cause of bre�dmg failure is more likely to be predation of eggs and chicks by Common Brushtail Possums, which caused most of the losses from uncollared ti·ees. If nests are protected from possums, young Glossy Blacks have a 42 per cent chance of fledging compared to only 23 pe_r cent if not pro­ tected. We were able to mcrease the pop­ ulation from 188 in 1995 to 204 in 1997 simply by placing iron collars around nesting b·ees. Although nest hollow competition and predation by other animals did occur, their effects seem to be relatively minor. During the course of our studies, Little Corellas and Honey Bees killed only small numbers of nestlings. And Yellow­ tailed Black-Cockatoos, which breed ear­ lier than Glossy Blacks, may have delayed some birds securing a hollow. With the threat of possums eliminated, the Glossy Black-Cockatoo population on Kangaroo Island should continue to increase. But will there be enough food to sustain it in the future? Much of the present habitat is declining in quality and is likely to lose its capacity to pro­ duce new cones within the decade. This is because of the old age of existing trees and lack of recruitment of young trees due to fire and grazing by stock, walla­ bies, kangaroos and feral Goats. The good news is that revegetation programs are under way to support the expanding Glossy Black-Cockatoo population. Kan­ garoo Island residents have already begun a range of habitat fencing and revegetation projects, so there will still be food on the table for these fussy eaters in the future. •

Further Reading Clout, M.N., 1989. Foraging behaviour of the glossy black-cockatoo. Aust. Wild/. Res. 16(4): 467-473. Garnett, S.T., Pedler, L.P. & Crowley, G.M., in press. The breeding biology of the Glossy Black-Cockatoo Calyp­ torhynchus Jathami on Kangaroo Island, South Aus­ tralia. Emu.

Pepper, J.W., 1997. A survey of the South Australian 1' Glossy Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami hal­ I maturinus) and its habitat. Wild/. Res. 24: 209-223. Pepper, J.W., Male, T. & Roberts, G., in press. The for­ ,- aging ecology of the South Australian Glossy Black­ Cockatoo Ca/yptorhynchus lathami halmaturinus. Aust. J. £col.

Tamra Chapman carried out her research on the feeding ecology of the Glossy Black­ Cockatoos as part of a PhD project, through the Zoology Department of the University of Adelaide. 55 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000

n�illion years the form of the skull . ·1 FORE­ of the dinosaurs. Fifteen of a 1 m . ITH HIS MASSIVE Australia, thunder old dromornithid, Bulloct- l o the ago, in northern i _h n-ye 1'//1 arms straddling has shed new ligh or,lls Pia/· carcass, the birds ruled OK! t on th kangaroo . er birds or mihirungs (family d�omorni�h!d origins. Muestion ::; lion hurnecl­ Thund Pete� urr marsupial were gigantic, groun�­ Dirk Megman from the ay an f/I -� h_is victim's tough Dromornithidae) N her d lyW scissors through birds that roamed Australia tory's Central Australian n l'erJi. ·. clwelling M�� with secateur-hke cheek-teeth. 000 . eurn rgu ·i hide at least 25 million to around 26, that these boofheadecl 1 0 a with the roo's flesh exposed, he from cl mor 1 ow At:nong the eig�t species was were in fact more closel e nithid� bolt clown steak-size �labs of years ago. Dromor­ y 1ated } begins to ever lived, . anseriform bird clan- e to t Rottweiler, but the largest bird that ge � u he , meat. The size of a small nis stirtoni, high and ot�er water fowl. ��i cks anu '.·, � .': this powerful carni­ three metres But this far more muscular, over 500 kilograms. Fossilised raises othe_r questions. tnaterial I :!-!' vore is the top mammalian predator of weighing In Parti remains of thunder birds were first suggested �n my opening �ular, s his day. Even so, he can't rel . As. he Bullockornis ptanei para g aph, � /­ � hmcl­ described in 1839, but until now most and per did frantically works into the roo s h 1 has consisted of assorted post­ thunder birds use their 7� other quarter the reason for his unease material powe 1 cranial elements. Little has been known �nd b�aks t� ea! meat? Befo � s�ulls :; becomes apparent. A distant rumble r: nsi�er. 1 , •• encl of his meal-and he of dromornithid skull morphology. Of mg this specific issue I need to heralds the li�le ab�ut a n knows it. The rumble turns into a course, for working out both the rela­ the infere�ce of diet�� i ? I"'' of extinct ani­ ammals m general, · ssi\ ground-shaking thunder, accompanied tionships and lifestyles using marsu 1 � of snapping undergrowth. mals, the skull is the business end of the and another giant terrestri pbtrs by the sounds al as ' :} ' From 2.5 metres above, three pairs of animal. Consequently, dromornithids examples. cold, almost reptilian eyes stare him have remained conspicuous but enig­ EC clown. The gig is over. With a surly but matic players in Australia's fauna] history. �NSTRU<;:TING THE LIFESTYLES OF ) extmct half-hearted hiss, the 'lion' backs off. In the absence of conclusive evidence R a�1mals is fraught with diffi­ way to it has traditionally been contended that culty. One bv1ous But there's no shame in giving ? and unpleasant obsta- I these adversaries. Each weighs over 300 thunder birds were related to ratites cle stands m our way-they're all de d kilograms. Our 'lion' has just been mus­ (Emus, Ostriches, cassowaries etc.) and As a result, he . . � task of the palaeobio�� I ess e cled off his kill by the most formidable that, like ratites, they were mostly her­ g1s� 1s entially that of the for nsic ci- ) bipedal carnivores since the extinction bivorous. Spectacular new evidence in entist-to erect the best supported see- '

05 V, � 0.... "':g § � "'illi "':::,

c..�

Reconstruction�� ------of the huge skull of Bulloc orn -. -- k Is plane,, about the length of lower jaw is massive in d . s . a medium-sized H orse head , i �utable evidence for extraordinarily - . The concave muscle-insertion site in the formidable hardwa re powerful jaw closing musc I es and a pot In a b�rd that was herbivorous probably �ntially 'back-breaking' bite. Such possibly other constitutes over-design, hence the members of its family) were significantly authors contention that this avian behemoth (and carnivorous. 58 O NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-zoO uction of Oiatryma gigantea, avian 00st 11ec ; Tertiary North America and o early terror pe- Euro r whatever f agmentary evi­ i: 1 0 ,sin

Thunder birds were gigantic, ground-dwelling birds that roamed Australia from at least 25 million to around 26,000 years ago.

into the lifestyle of the extinct. These argun:ients h ave merit, and have often been mvoked by palaeobiologists. How­ e ver, there are problems with both. �!early, the more distant the relation­ �h!P between an extinct species and its hvmg re_latives, the more tenuous the � Sumption that they shared similar lifestyles. Re?"a_r�ing the second princi­ ple, e r th. poss1b1hly always remains that f om our second 'rule of thumb'-analo­ plant-eaters. 1 e f 1 xtmct a_nima\ r:nay have used a simi­ gy with the closest living structural The debate over how Thylacoleo made ar feat ure m a l1v111g species for differ­ counterparts. However, it wasn't long a living has since gone full circle, tlianks urpose ��:: _s. Moreover, in some cases, before others questioned his reasoning largely to a detailed form-function analy­ t are sunply no comparable living and proposed alternative purposes for sis by Rod Wells (Flinders Univer ity) na o_gues. f Because of these uncertain­ Thylacoleo's monstrous premolars. In and colleagues who convincingly argued es, h s ! it a been suggested that a third hindsight some were laughable, culmi­ that the carnassials were ideally suited of l evidence should be considered. nating in th e often-ridiculed suggestion to shearing flesh. Anotlier important �1� m Th eth0d, called 'biomechanical that Thylacoleo was a melon-muncher. point raised by Wells and Co. was tliat de sign a nal ysis· ' , 1�volves· examining the no matter how silly such explana­ Thylacoleo's massive jaw mu scles and feat re . But u of m_Lerest 111 a fossil species and tions seem now, they were based on the bolt-cutting cheek-teeth were seriously th match �1 mg its form with the most generally accepted view that Thylacoleo 'over-designed' for any other purpose lik Y' h t . YPo het1cal function was a member of Australia's great but carnivory. Using Thylacoleo's cranial I n 1858 ' the r h Ric renow�ed palaeontologist diprotodontan radiation and, because hardware to eat f uit, or even the ard­ hard Owe� est of nuts, would be tantamount to call­ me descnbed the first speci­ moderndiprot odontans (including wom­ n of u ou ing the fire brigade to put out a match. sup a �i n s �lejstocene-aged mar­ bats, kangaroos, possums) are largely i l a nam a e? it Thylacoleo carnifex. vegetarian, it seemed reasonable to Mother Nature is a hard task mistress, Ex min h r ar1011 of its t Thylacoleo too. In further and one thing s e f owns on is waste. Owen premolar tee h left assume was in doubt t it was pointed Maintaining industrial-grade hardware a car � that he was looking al upport of his argument niv ,?e par Thylacoleo lacked large death­ for a role that could be performed far accept excellence, based on out that r an of the theor and, instead of having more cheaply is a serious inf action. lical y s y that large, ver­ dealing canines l l��ng che t t muscles to control the Evolutionary theor y predicts that natur­ are l h e ek-tee h (carnassials) large emporal . h a mar s like living carnivores, they al selection will ruthlessly weed out and Predato r. ll k of a mammalian lower jaw 0wen th us drew on inference had huge ;,,asseter (cheek) muscles like exterminate features or species found NATUR E AUST RALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 59 . gu·1ty of such offences . . tation o! 2 The history of interpre f 1;-?i11 ma giga_. ntea-a giant terresb·1a million-year-old excavated · 11"-· om 60-55- . . North America an d E urope, d t le in. so�1e !;.�i�l� '�hat of Thylacq � p ·tant respects, but with mte1 esbng Based on the hu_ge beak and �mf�'.ences. wa� muscles, Diatryma's hfestyle ·aw acos, anothe1 {ikened to that of Phorosrh_ _ bird. �ho­ extinct giant, ground-�welhng I ep­ rusrhacoids were a d1vers_e group, resented on every continent excepto! Africa and Austi·alia. Although som_e the smaller species c?u!d fly, the la! gei' around-dwelling vaneties we�e e1t�er heavy, bulky scaveng�rs or swift, active the aw�­ predators. The latte!· mcluded .....� '·), some Titanis wallen from Nor� Ame1 t­ ea, which may even have pers1st�d a_s recently as 12,000 years ag�, makmg it the closest thing to a Velociraptor ever

Unless Diatryma was regularly busting Coconuts, they argue, it couldn't have been a plant-eater-its head was too big!

seen alive by humans. Anyway, no-one ever doubted that all phorusrhacoids were carnivores. Consequently, Diatry­ ma remained guilty by association until, 72 years later, an alternative theory was flagged. In 1989, Allison Andors (Ameri­ can Museum of Natural History) carried out a detailed biomechanical analysis and concluded that Diatryma was a her­ bivore. In addition he pointed out that Diatryma lacks some features common to most carnivorous birds (its beak isn't hooked and its toes are not equipped with vicious talons) and suggested that the closest comparisons among living birds are grass- and leaf-eaters. Case closed? Not quite.

Titanis walleri was the last and most awesome of a long line of predominantly American 'terror birds'. Note the extraordinary and most 'un-bird-like' forelimbs, uncannily reminiscent of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs. Not as heavily built as Bullockornis or Diatryma, this bird was a sprinter. It may have persisted in North America until as recently as 12,000 years ago, giving early Americans a 'run' for their money!

2 ooo J 999- 60 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER

� In 1991, following another detailed investigation, this time by Lawrence Witmer and Kenneth Rose (Ohio and John Hopkins Universities, respective­ ly), the flesh-ripping, bone-crunching image of Diatryma was resurrected They pointed out that living birds ea� crop grass and leaves, and crack the lar_gest of nuts (Coconuts excepted), using heads a fraction the size of Dia­ tryma's. Unlike mammals, birds don't process food in their mouths so for pla�t-eatin15birds, there is no advantage in increasing the absolute size of the head beyond that required to crop the grass or bust the nut of choice. Put another way, in an up-sized version of any bird the head would become small­ �r compared to the body, assuming that 1t ate t�e same food. For example, the Aus�ahan Palm Cockatoo (Probosciger aternmus) has a fist-sized head and a very powerful beak that are relatively large compared to its body. With this equipment it can crack the largest of Aussie nuts. Of course, the Palm Cocka­ too is a midget compared to Diatryma (or dromornithids). If we scaled the Palm Cockatoo's body up to giant-like dimensions, but kept its head fist-sized, it could still crack the largest native nuts. A bigger head and beak would pro­ vide little advantage. More to the point, this would transgress that widely accepted dictum-natural selection won't tolerate excess. Thus, as Witmer and Rose explain, the important point is not the relative size of Diatryma's head compared to its body, but the absolute size of its head relative to the proposed food of choice. Unless Diatryma was regularly busting Coconuts, they argue, it couldn't have been a plant-eater-its head was too big! Supporting this hypothesis is the fact that, in giant birds that are known to be plant-eaters (moas, Emus etc.), the head is small compared to the body. To Witmer and Rose the only way to explain Diatryma's big head was that it took larger prey.

HAT DOES ALL THI HAVE TO DO Wwith the palaeobiology of thun­ der birds? Well, hope�lly I'v� de_mon­ strated the following point�. First, _infer­ ring the biology of �xtinct _ animals through comparison wi�h their closest living relatives is anything ?ut con�lu­ sive when the two groups in question are only distantly related. Second, the fact that a fossil animal doesn't fit a co 1- given ste�e?type for__ all features � to a hving guild 1s no reason to p1 e­ mon ' sume that it couldn't once have been a long as some of "" part of such a guild, � , _ 3 its features do 'fit the bill . Third, regard- i'. ing the diets of extinct anim�ls, the case � should never be closed until thorough � design analyses have � biomechanical � been conducted. The relevance of a_ll this to dromornithid diet is clear. Their � closest living relatives (whether you tn • I J ,/. � ATURE 61 AUSTR A LIA SUMMER 1999-2000 ), Corvus crassirostri� al_so !�ck these fea­ that question. Certainly . ratites or geese) a1:e ( Bulloclwr­ Genyor th pl ei take these to be lme 1s this: dromornithid ni; n! stocen separated by tens of m!l­ tures. The bottom very distant, nis had the features required much smaller skull than Bu�toni a of years, and a lot can happen 111 certainly h d e lions and butcher large prey. Of course, both absolut� and relative ::kornis, i� they lack some fea­ to kill t rn v this time; although s. 1 this doesn't prove that it did.Some living so, a scavengmg role has be E en tures present in most living carnivorous of eel for this others; plant-eating birds als? possess many b_ird. Recent evid:�/uggest. birds they certainly possess the huge on the re_lative J? indulged in _a these features. But given that proportions of based ( and, finally, no-one has yet Bulloclwrnis appear to carbon isotopes . iffer design analy 1s head and beak of present 1 ent detailed biomechanical for process­ egg�hells, has been foss l 1 rnithids. have been 'over-designed' interprete � i for dromo material, I believe portmg_ the_ hypothesis as sup Historically, the argument against car­ ing available plantprima facie that Ge . is a strong case for the was pnmanly a browser· nyorn� I nivory in thunder birds was never there · · . H oweve . lifestyle. Even arnvmg at th 1s conclusi r, in 1 sb-ong and the new skull material pre­ assertion of a carnivorous a priori, on th e u Coconut-sized nuts were present in had as�;umed, � thors sented by Murray and Megirian if i that the b1 to be � herb vore. If we Was sb·engthens my conviction, at least for Miocene Australia, it would have dismiss this a ::u j Bullockornis planei. Bullock­ in suffi­ t10n, as we must The bill of demonstrated that they existed until more co ndUSiv�p. oniis 300-kilogram evidence comes to e is convex, very deep, and driven by cient abundance to sustain . hand then thes ta I the 'over­ �oulei Just· as ' e da powerful muscles (evidenced by enor­ birds in order to explain away easily support the 0 . ) 0n (?enyornis ro s1 mous muscle-attachment sites). These design' problem. �1 that fed largely 0i br� · mg herb1"'.ores are all standard equipment in most living So it's time to ask again: what did this .. Consequently, 1 ts- 1 Diatryma bird eat? Built like a brick 'out �Jude th�t 1sotop1c evidence carnivorous birds, and pho­Dia­ gigantic lends no�h- shares with house', with a head the size of a horse's, 1�g to either pro-herbivor ) rusrhacoids.tryma It further y or pro-ea:r and phorusrhacoids a huge head, and military-issue jaw muscles, dare I mvory arguments at present. to fly and nostrils placed well say just about anything it darn well felt Other evidenc� may count an inability . against the ' like! 1 ference of carmvory fo u back on the beak.Unlike most living rap­ Bullockor­ � r some th nder bird . For ( tors and mostDiatryma, phorusrhacoids, Bullockornis but in nisOn a less frivolous note, the � example, unusually for b' common with is skull material raises more questions c�rmvores, dromornithid fossils are r�f. 1 tively massively built and lacks a distinctively than it answers. For example,Bullockornis do argu­ � common. Of course, fossilisation hooked bill and talons. But then other ments for carnivory in 1 a fickle process :' and many explana­ living carnivorous or scavenging birds, apply to other thunder birds as well? 0 Dromornist1 ns cou)d account for this excess. For , such as the African Carrion Crow We'll need more fossil skulls to tackle fossils, Peter Murray sug-

Restorations of the skeletons of the giant North American terrestrial bird Diatryma gigantea (right) and the still larger Australian thunder bird Bullockornis planei (left). Although separated by tens of millions of years and thousands of kilometres, the similarities are striking. 2.5 Most authors have interpreted Diatryma as a highly effective predator.

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1.5

1.0

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62 OO NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER t999-2o Leopard-sized ' built lik e a t an k d fan orm1'd a bi Y armed, Wakaleo vanderleuer, was a top-ranking mammalian predator of middle Miocene northern Aus . tralia. It may well have had to compete with other predators, of the avian kind. geSts they are abundant because birds even the largest thunder bird, Dromor­ long-gone ancestors of all birds, the w_ide area congregated may have been capable of theropod dinosaurs. • tom � at water nis stirtoni, oles 10 times of drought. surprising speed, up to 35 kilometres per other question: .� how did such large hour. Further Reading b r . s manage to run down and secure I don't pretend to have solved the rid­ D., 1998. The skull of dromor­ th Murray, P.F. & Megirian, r prey? Incidentally, this same ques- dle of thunder bird palaeobiology. nithid birds: anatomical evidence for their relationship tio� ha been levelled at those who sup- Indeed, anything but. More realistically, to Anseriformes. Ree. 5. Aust. Mus. 31: 51-97. P?rt a predatory habit for I hope to have raised enough doubt to the ultimate the bipedal mons t er, Tyrannosaurus rex (see stimulate further research. There are Witmer, L.M. & Rose, K.D., 1991. Biomechanics of N,a tu re Au5l. Sum for and against carnivory in jaw apparatus of the gigantic Eocene bird Diatryma: mer 1996-97). A num- arguments for diet and mode of life. Pa/eobiology 17: b er of alternatives are available and other dromornithids, implications d , · · Perhaps Bulloclwrnis 95-120. romornithids weren t active predators but to those in the anti-camp, the func­ bu t s . . fea­ cavengers , us1· . ' of one conspicuous complex of S., 1999. Killer kangaroos and other murderous size ng their mt1m1'd atmg. tion Wroe, tom cle other carnivores tures demands explanation. II Bullockor­ marsupials. Sci. Amer. May 1999: 68-74. sites �� from kill . O e other hand,_ this query pre­ nis didn't regularly feed on vertebrate suppos;s that what was its undeniably Wroe, S. & Myers, T., 1998. Fallacy and future-eating. nit the animals dromor­ carcasses, then hids hunte d were and powerful skull, beak and Australas. Sci. 19(9): 27-29. ners themselves fast run­ massive the Th' doesn't necessarily follow. chewing muscles used for? Invoking Cert�in lt if it wa_s cracking Wroe is a palaeontologist at the h not all dromornithids would principle argued above, Dr Stephen ave b e grass, then 1t suffered Australian and Macleay Museums. He con­ Ma Ponderous slow movers. nuts or cropping ybe :;me r problem. ducted his PhD research at the University of cha scavenged and oth. ers f om a erious 'over-design' sed? F"O r this bird appears to defy New South Wales. His research has centred try1n · m- fu nct1on analyse for Dia- Herbivory for a a d T rex theory. If this is true, then on the evolution of Australia's marsupial Were ha:'e indicated that they evolutionary r a interest in car­ n� necessarily was the bird f om hell, carnivores, but he has a keen analysis slow. Likewise an Bulloclwrnis of those nivorous animals in general. b Y Peter Murray indicates that truly terrifying 'reincarnation' NATU 63 RE AU STRA LIA SUMMER 1999-2000 ...... _____ 2000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER !999- 64 rd PHOTO ART

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68 99g-zoOO NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER J NAT 69 - URE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 grind up its food. Working out the closest relatives VIEWS FROM THE FOURTH DIMENSION these birds has been a chall enge, main�� because of t�e lack of adequate sk / t�at the ood vessels 1 t was a petrified brain, so perfectly preserved � material. While firs� thought to be r I larg� fhghtles _ e\�. last thoughts stood out zn prou eel to other birds kno that serviced its owner's ratites (Os�nch, Emu, ca w� relief over its surface. as ssowane kiwis, rheas, tmamo�s, and the extinc elephant birds), i , moas and later sugge tions were that they were more clos game birds or e\ related to gallif orms (hall BRAIN OF THE tonne 'chickens from Hell'). Mor� recently, Peter Murray and Dirk Megiri an (Central Australian Museum) hav· DEMON DUCK OF suggested, on the basis of skull materi� from the Northern Territory, that they are most closely related to duc ks and DOOM their relatives (anseriforms). peared. From the illustra�ion,. Patricia Similarly controversial has been what BY MICHAEL ARCHER Vickers-Rich (Monash University) con­ dromornithids did for a living. Until cluded it was almost certainly a femur of recently they were pre umed to be her­ a dromornithid-an extinct family of bivores, perhaps eaters of seed or large to huge flightless birds unique to leaves. In favour of this argument has Australia. been the abundance of some specie in In the years that followed, many kinds the deposits in which they occur, carni­ of dromornithids were discovered, from vores normally being rarer than herbi­ the last-surviving, large-Emu-size Geny­ vores. Similarly, the pile of gizzard ornis newtoni (probably the species that stones suggests to some a herbivore that YSTERJOUS ARE THE first let Rankin down), to the deep­ had to finely grind difficult-to-digest ways we first confront the unknown. In beaked 12-million-year-old Bullockornis plant material, meat being much easier the case of ew South Wales colonist ptanei and the horrendously huge eight­ to digest. However, carnivore can be George Rankin, his 1830 discovery of million-year-olcl Dromornis stirtoni, preserved in abundance, particularly prehistoric bones in the Wellington which at three metres in height and per­ around waterholes where other bogged Caves proved nearly fatal. Having tied a haps 500 kilograms in weight may have creatures become someone el e's din­ rope to what he thought was a projection been the largest bird in the world-ever. ner, and gizzard stones occur in croco­ of rock, he began to descend to the This feathered titan coexisted at Alcoota, diles and even some recently discovered cave's lower depths. Moments later, the in the Northern Territory, alongside two carnivorous dinosaurs.. 'rock', which turned out to be the leg smaller and more slender species of Stephen Wroe (Australian Museum bone of a giant, flightless bird, snapped Jtbandornis. and the University of New South Wale) off to join Rankin and his rope in a heap Riversleigh's dromornithid discoveries has challenged conventional wisdom by on the cave floor. Fortunately he and the have included Barawertornis tedfordi, the noting that the incredibly powerful bone survived to become heralds of oldest (about 24 million years old) dro­ beaks and jaw musculature of at least Wellington's rich and historically signifi­ mornithid known. Walter Boles (Aus­ Bullockornis seem 'over-designed' for an cant fossil deposits. tralian Museum) has also been studying avian herbivore, but perfectly appropri· That untrustworthy bone, having been a beast informally clubbed 'Big Bird'. ate gear for a rapacious flesh-eater (see sent to England, was identified by Next to its gigantic leg bone in the lime­ his article in thi issue). If they were car· Richard Owen as the leg bone of a previ­ stone block at River leigh are hundreds nivores, these 'Demon Ducks of Doom' ously unknown large bird. It was later of polished pebbles in an otherwise peb­ (as they were mischievously called by illustrated, which was fortunate because ble-free rock-evidently the gizzard Walter Boles) would have been some of sometime during World War 2 it clisap- stones or gastroliths that were used to the most awesome flesh-eaters since the dinosaur . And it wouldn't be the first time that giant flightless birds took a shine to flesh. South America once sport· eel the gruesome phorusrhacoids ('ter· ror cranes') some of which had skulls half a mett:e in len<>th with vicious, hooked beaks. The gi�nt predatory dia· trymids would have been similarly unpopular in orth An1erica whe re the)' probably gobbled up ancestral ho rses. Enter the intrepid volunteers of the Riversleigh Expedition of 1999. Wh�n r 'Lizard' (aka Chri Cannell f om Pas1111nf co) block 0 skilfully cracked open a r chocolate-coloured limestone f om a newly discovered ite, Micheala Gilligan (science teacher from Seaha�11, N_e�� South Wal s) noticed a mystenous tis

Part of the ankle bone (tibiotarsus) of the as­ yet-unnamed 'Big Bird' from Riversleigh corn· d pared with that of an Ostrich, the largest bir alive today.

zoOO 70 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER !999- cd 'Big Bird' in situ at Riversleigh. The gigantic leg bone lies next to hundreds of gizzard stones.

sized treasure that simply popped out of the block. As she and her husband Brian (Director o� N�w Sou�1 Wales National Parks & Wildlife Service) puzzled over the object, my jaw dropped when I saw what she held. It was a petrified brain, so perfectly preserved iliat ilie blood ves­ sels that serviced its owner's last thoughts stood out in proud relief over its surface. Even the V-shaped 'optic chi­ asma' iliat brought the nerves from ilie once bright eyes of iliis beast into ilie base of its brain was present. But what sort of beast was managed by this brain? It was like no mammal brain I had ever seen, nor did it appear reptilian. The aiveaway was one piece that had a bit ot'skullattached. This had thin layers of bone surrounding a iliick spongy mar­ row-bird! But clearly it was far too big for an emu or cassowary, which left only one plausible candidate-the Demon Duck of Doom! Back in Sydney, Bob Rainey (Universi­ ty of Texas in Austin), veteran of thou­ sands of palaeontological jigsaw puzzles, spotted ilie attachment points for several isolated pieces found next to the brain. Moments later, Walter Boles folded lov­ ing fingers around ilie extraordinary object and reverently ferreted it away to his research lab. What might Walter learn from study­ ing the brain of the Demon Duck of Doom? Perhaps new understanding about how this bizarre group of gigantic birds functioned in life. After all, the endocast provides a superb view of the electrical switchboard for the whole - beast. The sizes of nerve tracts and the - lobes of the brain measure amounts of activity in particular parts of the body. The tiny olfactory lobes, for example, - Relaxed suggest on first inspection they might have had trouble smelling their own poo. - Similarly, the small cerebellum probably Would YOU like to feel this way? reflects the non-functional nature of their It's easy - just join one of our tropi­ shrivelled wings. But the enormous lobes of the central part of the brainsug­ cal treks. gest that these land-bound leviathans were no mental lightweights-perhaps No phones, no cars, no hassle. Ever y day brings something one should expect of feather­ perfect weather. Ever y hour brings another beauti­ brained predators that had to outwit ful pool. You relax because you are enjoying the furryprey? • moment too much to want to move on. Further Reading Ask for our brochure. Murray, P.F. & Megirian, D., 1998. The skull of dromor­ nithid birds: anatomical evidence for their relationship to Anseriformes. Ree. 5. Aust. Mus. 31: 51-97. nature Rich, P.V., 1979. The Dromornithidae, an extinct family of large ground birds endemic to Australia. Bur. Min. Res. Ceo/. Geophys. Bull. 184: 1-196.

Mic�ael Archer is the Director of the Aus­ ta!zan Museum and Professor of Biological czence at the University of New South al s i fos � . H s major research interests are the szl faunas of Riversleigh, north-western Queensland. 71 NA TURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 in this slim, dense volume. tall, local recycJin His main theses are that we mcrease, an are headed for environmen­ d there! Would REVIEWS more. communal . �Uld be tal catastrophe and that the par t · activ ty ic1patory d I and prime causes are grossly Goal� w?uld includ�rnsoecracy_ excessive production and and }UStlce rat h unti,, consumption in affluent con­ her t c vent1onal prosp /n c . accurate identifi­ sumer societies. To correct erit on they make �ark �reen behaviou · Such virt ually impossible. this, we need radical changes 1fest m r1· 8 cation the Global E .lllan. , Frequently the backgrounds to our economic systems Movement. cov11lage with the clarity of (dark green behaviour) Trai interfere ner is indefar the individual being pho­ rather than ineffective man­ attemp g igable in � tin to rai se tographed. agement at the margin, for understanding. O P�blic . · n e wish It would be impractical to example, more recycling, him well 111 this id es greater energy efficiencyetc. . . . eal·IS t· IC a d have a key to all the species c1. uc1a jjy important _ in the book-it is (light green behaviour). The G , . exer 1,on presented iven to day s mcreas· .c also beyond its scope. purpose of the book is to vidualism and ing lndi.""· elfish ness he Instead, I would like to have help people to become dark has a long way to go_ , seen a series of tables at the green. back that list species and Trainer analyses the limits their various preferred habi­ to material growth and dis­ tats, for example, those cusses both the ecological species that are frequently problems and the counterar­ fully submerged, those that guments. He outlines the flower after flooding etc. form a sustainable society These tables would enhance must take and the actions the book and make identifica­ needed. In doing this, he Aquatic and tion easier and more effi­ emphasises justice, peace, Wetland Plants: A cient. morality and quality-of-life as Field Guide for This book was obviously essential components of the Non-tropical written to replace the now global social fabric. Australia out-of-print Aquatic plants of Some startling statistics By Nick Romanowski. University of Australia by Helen Aston. provide context and urgency. New South Wales Press, NSW, With improved photos and If everyone alive in 2060 1998, 119pp. $29.95rrp. these tables added as an (possibly 11 billion people) appendix, this book would were to have present Aus­ Australian wetlands and definitely achieve this aim. tralian living standards, swamps are botanically -Peter Jobson world production of diverse and full of interesting, National Herbarium of NSW resources would need to beautiful and bizarre-looking Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney multiply by eight or ten. On plants. This handy little book top of this, three per cent The Evolution aims at presenting the more annual economic growth Revolution obvious and common plants would mean the total world By Ken McNamara and John Long. that would be encountered in economic output in 2070 Jacaranda Wiley & Sons, NSW, temperate Australia. SAVING THE would exceed that of today 1998, 298pp. $45.00rrp, There is a brief section on by more than 100 times. Yet ENN'.IRON rvlENm the types of wetlands present I present economic demand is The subject matter of TIie in Australia, how we define ecologically unsustainable. evolution revolution is life'. native and introduced (exot­ The paradox between inter­ history a told by the fossil ic) plants, a brief but concise national commitments to record. Eighteen chapt�r glossary and an excellent bib­ ecologically sustainable each typically treat a maJo_r liography. The plant names development and economic evolutionary event. �he sn are current and the author growth could not be clearer. ence is topical, with the s even highlights where immi­ Trainer's olution does not splashier finds of the i99o nent name changes are likely embrace the conventional pre-em111e· nce. The o·iven n to occur. The botanical lan­ approaches of technological �eader is treated to curre t � n· guage has been kept to a bare fixes, a dematerialised econ­ thinkino- on many of pal�eo I minimum without sacrificing omy and green economic . classic que51lons. toloo-y"' '; the the content. Indeed he rejects these firm­ ple, w h� t ai- e For exam Edi· In the main body of the ly as part of the 'arrogance 'o·utless"' wonders. . of � r book plant families and gen­ Saving the t . i b' ds \ and thuggery' of conven ion­ acara? Did flight n or era are treated in alphabetical Environment al economists. Instead, a sus­ r the groulld By Ted Trainer. UNSW Press, NSW, arise f om u;vhY order. The main distinguish­ tainable society requires the trees down? A11d ing features of each species 1998, 63pp. $9.95rrp. Tyrannosaurus ref (Jave drastically reduced con­ does e are mentioned and how they s? Whi: l th sumption and pollution rates such puny arm f the differ from closely related In the 1960s, ecology was t style in the rich coun ries. We often humorous �arget species or species that super­ castigated as the subversive must develop small, self-suf­ t ts that the . ext. sugge . 1a' li st. ficially look similar. science because it challenged ficient settlements and local non spec aud 1ence I voluflo. 11 isn't For a book that relies heav­ that holy-of-holies, economic economies. Most goods and The evolution re - d in ily on photos for identifica­ growth. . J dee , This subversion is services would be produced L'1t n_ c1 nee _ �- _ 0 t. (Jea10'· tion, I was dismayed to see prosecuted with a vengeance from local land, resources the going ,,e s places Id have that roughly half of the pho­ by University of New South and capital-the reverse of a glossary wou tos and 11 ple, a are taken so far away that Wales academic Ted Trainer globalisation. Costs would been useful (for exai

I 999-2000 72 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER

�� n on �in develop- discussio years of work on the series converted in Zebra Fish assumes th�y l_1av into humans and 111ent � had many 'once-in� their material that readers understand the a-lifetime experiences. cultural of layers). The They objects, there is increasing 111eaning germ have urfed with whales, debate of chapters leans �lmed about how to manage balance the ma s coral spawn­ the remaining wards vertebrates (three mg, watched marlin relatively to slicing undeveloped areas. chapters on fish, two on through schools of The baitfish debate at its deepest levels is dinosaurs, plus the latest on and seen the sun blacked out driven reptiles, pterosaurs, by concerns of power, marine money and personal fossil birds, Gondw�nan beliefs. Almost everyone views him­ mammals, and the uptight, self as Tw? Why does a stakeholder with a upright primate). perva­ point of view. themes that give the sive Tyrannosaurus In this_ book, Marcia Lang­ book a unique :flavoura!·e het­ rex ton. remmds ry us of the con­ erochrony (the evolu�10na_ t�mporary Aboriginal of changes 111 life point of result have such puny view of environmental man­ cycles) and disc?veries on agement in Australia an fossils. The espe­ Australi arms? cially as it relates to th� use of authors' own experiences are fire. The r The importance of this f equently reco�nted. , point of view stems evolution revolution t from doesn three interrelated facts about attempt to tackle the entirety by a huge school of rays. Aboriginal relationship to the of evolutionary biology-it The narrative is richly land: priority in ownership, isn't a gene's-eye view of the enhanced by the wonderful length of management expe­ world. As a readable account photographs from this couple rience, and depth of attach­ of large-scale patterns in the who have over three decades ment. Aboriginal people have fossil record, it offers much of diving experience and not only occupied the land to a wide audience. seven Emmy awards to their longer than any other group, -Greg Edgecombe credit. The text is easy to by two orders of magnitude, Australian Museum read, personal, and at times but Aboriginal environmental very humorous. Most divers management, both conscious and especially underwater and unconscious, at least photographers will be able to until the disruptive European relate to many of the anec­ invasion, touched all Aus­ dotes. My only criticisms are tralian landscapes to varying that the images, while beauti­ degrees. And Aboriginal peo­ ful, sometimes aren't relevant ple continue to be among the to the adjacent text, and that most intimately tied to the the book has no index. The land of any group of Aus­ latter would have made find­ tralians today. Langton recog­ ing a particular photograph nises that any decision on much easier. environmental management The book is not a scientific will be a consensus based on work. The authors state that current needs and attitudes, "No one should presume this but she makes a strong case book to be a resource or ref­ that the Aboriginal view has Secrets of the erence text. Rather, it's a visu­ much to contribute to this Ocean Realm al and verbal chronicle of the consensus. This is especially By Michelle and Howard Hall. New adventure of underwater film­ true on those lands on which Holland Publishers, NSW, 1998, making." This chronicle has Aboriginal possession, and 162pp. $49.95rrp. easily earned itself a place on hence management, has been my coffee table. virtually continuous. to Sarcastic fringehead, -Mark McGrouther Langton writes in part_ bias­ demon stingers and irish Australian Museum correct what she sees as lords are just es in certain mainly �estern some of the of amazing creatures captured Burning or scientific interpretat10ns on film Aboriginal environment?! in Michelle and Questions: this Howard Hall's book, Secrets of Emerging management. In places, the ocean realm. Environmental passion borders on t�e To polemical and creates a stylis­ be honest, when I was Issues for ho asked to tic hurdle for the reade� � review this book, I Indigenous the mJus­ expected it to include Peoples in has not suffered _ pho­ she wntes. But to�raphs and some 'pseudo­ Northern tices of which s learn to read through cience' facts about the rele­ Australia one can va for perhaps justified emo­ nt creatures. In reality, I By Marcia Langton. Centre this was Natural and Cultural tional undertone and to get, surprised to discover Indigenous Abo­ °met Management, Northern as a reward, a tho�ghtful 1 hing quite different. Resource on mat­ ecrets of the ocean realm TerritoryUniversity, NT, 1998, riginal point of view ta k one has p�rh�ps es the reader to exotic 89pp. $17.95rrp. ters that ed l0e t· only previously c�ns1de1 h � ions, as the Halls relate r t eir other perspectives. adve�t�res numbers and f om E. Greer the in producing As human -Allen telev1s1on series of the material wellbeing increas�, Australian Museum same name. In their two and more and more land is

NATUR E AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 > - SOCIETY PAGE local and na onal, which exist to further the cause of the Australia there is a network of active societies, large a�d small, U subject that you h0 Id dear. Get involved! Across or a particular group of animals, Whether your special interest is conservation, birds, science, national parks, bushwalking there's a society for you.

ANIMAL WELFARE EARTH SCIENCES MARSUPIALS NATURAL HISTo� Tasmanian Royal Society of SA Inc. The Marsupial Society of Field Natu 1� Fauna Rescue of South Club ra!Sll Australia Inc. SA Museum, North Tee Australia Inc. Adelaide SA 5000 GPO Box 2462 GPO Box 68A PO Box 241 Hobart Tas. Modbury North SA 5092 Ph: (08) 8223 5360 Adelaide SA 5001 7001 Ph: (03) 6227 863 Ph: (08) 8264 4958 Contact: Dr Ole Wiebkin Ph: (08) 8374 1783 8 r Website: www.tased.edu Website: www.f osa.org • Contact: Catherine au/tasonlin Contact: Mrs Sheila Burbidge Membership: $50.00 e/tasfield/ Whittington tasfielcl.htm • Contact: Membership: $30.00 family, Australian Field Geology ••••• Genevieve Gates $20.00 single, $10.00 pen­ Club Membership: $25.00 full, •• sioner/student, $50.00 16 Arbutus St $5.00 assoc., $35.00 overseas Memb�rs�ip: $25.00 adults, organisation Mosman NSW 2088 $20.00 Junior/ concession $30.00 family Ph: (02) 9969 2135 Marsupial Society of Victoria Sydney Metropolitan Wildlife Contact: Doug Raupach Services Inc. ••• 20 Wavell Avenue REPTILES & Lane Cove National Park Membership: $20.00 Kilsyth Vic. 3137 AMPHIBIANS PO Box 78 Ph: (03) 9779 9418 Queensland Frog Society Lindfield NSW 2070 EDUCATION Website: www.vicnet.net. PO Box 7017 Ph: (02) 9413 4300 CSIRO's Double Helix au/-marsup. East Brisbane Qlcl 4169 • • Science Club Contact: Heather Niggen­ Ph: (07) 3366 1806 Membership: $25.00 PO Box 225 dyker Website: www.qldfrogs. Dickson ACT 2602 asn.au BIRDS Ph: (02) 6276 6643 •• Contact: Jenny Holdway Bird Observers Club of Contact: Lynn Pulford Membership: $30.00 •••••• Australia (Melbourne • Membership: $10.00 adults, Branch) Membership: $25.00 MUSEUM $15.00 family, $7.50 U18, $5.00 PO Box 185 UlO Queensland Museum Nunawading Vic. 3131 SA Science Teachers Association Ph: 1300 305 342 Association Inc. Hawkesbury Herpetological Website: www.birdobservers. 1st Floor, 211 Flinders St Box 3300 Society Inc. org.au Adelaide SA 5000 South Brisbane Qld 4101 PO Box 2 Contact: Mrs E McCulloch Ph: (08) 8224 0871 Ph: (07) 3840 7632 Whalan SW 2770 •• • Website: www.science. Contact: Carol Middleton Ph: (02) 9625 7561 aclelaicle.eclu.au/sasta Contact: Jeff Banks Birds Australia Contact: Judy Morton ••• • 415 Riversdale Rd •• Membership fee: $25.00 Membership: $10.00 Hawthorn East Vic. 3123 Membership: $80.00 single, $30.00 family, $20.00 Ph: (03) 9882 2622 secondary, $69.00 primary concession & country Herpetological Society Contact: Donald Coventry of Qld Inc . •• ENVIRONMENTAL PO Box 5001 Membership: $51.00 The AustralianMuseum Greening Australia/Earth Society Kenmore East Qld 4069 Ph: (07) 3202 9054 Keepers 6 College St CONSERVATION Contact: William McGrath Australian Platypus State Tree Centre Sydney NSW 2000 ••• Conservancy Brookway Drive Ph: (02) 9320 6225 Membership: $25.00 single, PO Box 84 Campbelltown SA 5074 Contact: Michelle Ball $20.00 student, $25.00 family Whittlesea Vic. 3757 Ph: (08) 8207 8757 Contact: Sheryn Pitman ••••• Ph: (03) 9716 1626 Membership: $55.00 single, Website: www.totalretail. ••••• $75.00 household, $40.00 corn /platypus Membership: $25.00 Newsletter/Journal Contact: Geoff Williams student/pensioner • Monthly meeting INSECTS •••••• • Bi-monthly meeting Membership: $30.00 adults, Entomological Society of Are you a Annual meeting/Conference $45.00 family, $20.00 Victoria Club Secretary? • Weekly meeting students 56 Looker Rei NATURE AUSTRALIA's • Quarterly meeting Montmorency Vic. 3094 Malleefowl Preservation Ph: (03) 9435 4781 Associate Society Scheme is • Field outings/Tours Group Inc. Website: www.vicnet.net.au designed to help your club or • Conservation/Working programs PO Box 29 /-vicento/ society with free publicity, • Discounted Goods Ongerup WA 6336 Contact: Ian Enclersby funds and member benefits. Ph: (08) 9828 2007 Magazine •• Call Robbie Muller on (02) Social/Education activities Contact: Susanne Dennings Membership: $20.00 metro, •• •• $16.00 country, $12.00 9320 6119 for more details. • Nature Australia magazine Membership: $10.00 family students • Seminars

20 0 99- 0 74 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER !9

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77 Readers please mention Nature Australia when replying to advertisements ------, rather a native Peron's Tree display at the entrance of the Only Skin Deep Museum. What fasci­ Frog (Litoria peronii). It is Australian I photographed . hat light to dark grey, and some­ nated me were the rib-like • looked like the W ny Pha/ times brown, in colour, with a appendages attached to the cervi­ skinQ of a Rhinoceros Be ; small bright cal (neck) vertebrae. Unlike con­ was far from its usua : ;: It scattering of l ,tat, the dor­ ventional thoracic ribs, which are which I thought was green flecks across much: th curved and flat, these 'neck ribs' north than the Tahmo sal region. Its skin has raised or -�argoer with rapidly taper into the long, thin, area of New South lumps (not associated Wales. Ca the green spots), which give round and relatively straight you identify it for me? n & tex­ bones almost like giant pencils. - it a slightly roughened Brian Ward Frog What are these bones and what Dou ture. Peron's Tree glas Park, Nsw grows to around four to six was their function? centimetres in length and -Mervyn D. Cobcroft . This is the pupal sk A occurs in eastern Australia Stafford Heights, Qld A• of a cossid m oth These are from Victoria to Queensland. wood-boring 1 ar-· These curious objects v e ancl o ft It prefers cool temperate to • � en referred to as Frog Find subtropical vegetation near • are indeed ribs, in w1tchetty grubs (see Natu thisA case, cervical ribs. They re I found this frog on our static or flowing water and its Aust. Aut1;1mn 1999). The . occur in a variety of creamy Q • front footpath. At first I call is described as a long rat­ white grubs bore into thought it was a young Cane Toad tle lasting approximately two dinosaurs. The presence of the trunks of eucalypts and and almost sprayed it with Dettol, seconds. Even though cervical ribs is the original wattles where they stay until then I saw in my torchlight green Peron's Tree Frog is consid­ condition in fish and early they are ready to pupate spots on its back and head. In ered common and its status is tetrapocls, but these have They then crawl to th� ordinary daylight they were just secure, it is good that you been gradually reduced in entrance of their tunnel and like raised lumps but shone under didn't douse it with Dettol. later vertebrates, and in err:ierge . froi:n their pupal torchlight. Do you know what it -K.L. some groups, lost. Because skin, which 1s then di card­ is? the cervical ribs in the tyran­ ed. -Angie Heyning Dinosaur Bones nosaur are relatively puny, it -Martyn Robinson Mullumbimby, NSW . t recently had the plea­ is likely they no longer Australian Museum Q • sure of viewing the served any function. A• Your frog is definitely assembled fossil skeleton of the -Walter E. Boles The beautifully patterned • not a Cane Toad, but dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex on Australian Museum Peron's Tree Frog.

78 2000 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMMER 1999- What insect left this skin lying about? samer of silk. The silk gos­ Long Webs Answers to Quiz Recently while walking samer is caught by the in •. in the Royal National breeze and the spider contin­ Nature Strips (page 19) Park,Q I noticed webs that spanned ues to release more silk, 1. Cyclone Vance great distances high up in the thereby extending the 2. In the Antarctic trees. How do spiders get the thread. If the spider is lucky, 3. Black and white tree to the other? the thread becomes entan­ webs from one 4. James Watson and Francis -Jenny Peters gled in a branch some dis­ Woolooware, NSW tance away, and the spider Crick uses this thread as a bridge 5. Self-amputation of body . Suspending an orb between the two points. The parts • web between distant silk bridge is strengthened as 6. Giant squids Atrees is the result of both luck the spider walks across it and and ingenuity. The spider lays down more silk, and it is 7. Pi walks to an extremity (the then in a position to build the 8. The male end of a branch, or top of a web. 9. Nipah plant), raises its abdomen -Mark A. Elgar 10. Peter Garrett and squeezes out a thin gos- University of Melbourne

p C T E A s E R

Do you recognise this? If you think you know what it is, then send your answer to Pie Teaser, Nature Australia Magazine. Please don't for­ get to include your name and address. The first correct entry will win a copy of Life in the treetops: adventures of a woman in field biology from the Australian Museum Shop. Spring's Pie Teaser was a sand crab ( Ovalipes au5fraliensis) buried in the san d with only its eyes and an tennae sticking out.

N 79 ATURE A USTRALIA SUMMER 1999-2000 (or vehicle . . where approp e THE LAST WORD b10 1?g1ca · 1 sampling nath ) car% and o g equ1p1:7e�t for gathering e�·lt graph t .1 en e i orgamsatton would thus b c . 'fh to prov1· . e in a Po . e Each major river system in Australia could d e spec1 6·1c evide n e Sttion have a Riverkeeper, devoting time and effort nesses crucial to litigation. e and Wit. A fundwould have to be . to the river in question. es b 1 e exclusively pay the wages of the full-ti� \sh dto t and help ee �ov�r. court costs whe K Per' sary. All mdivicluals, n nec s­ commun· . e e councils sustained by the e ·�� � an / riv r, i d cl?se proximity to the river iv ng in THE �r oth r. wise affected by it, could be� e e of the river's e _awar ) ecological a stt et e commercial utility,thereby i and RIVERKEEPERS enco ca donations. The rest of the fu t ging n s (and this is the hard part) could be BY JOHN CHRISTOPHER GAZECKI tributed by con- } State and Commo n governmen ts 111· recog111tio. . wealth n o f th e i role played by Riverkeepers for th b taJ efit _of all Australians. e en. l Alarmed by the poor quality of water and . Riverkee�er organisations would b fish numbers, Cronin mt_eg_rated i�to the broade e 1 dropping r matrix of embarked upon a life-long campaign to e:<3-stmg environmental protection 1 agen- 1 save the system. Hence was born the cies and �omp\eme�� their efforts. How. and ever, their mam e first US 'Riverkeeper', both as a man utility would li in tak- , as an organisation. ing much o� t�e strain off many of these The idea of Riverkeepers was other associations and providing a ser­ spawned in England where fishing clubs vice specific to a particular river cour e hired 'Keepers' to protect salmon which is likely to be more effective i� streams from poachers and polluters. protecting that given system. FOR ITS SIZE, AUSTRALIA IS A The US Riverkeeper organisations per­ Once a Riverkeeper organisation relatively dry landmass lacking the form much the same task but on a much establishes itself, the arsenal of informa­ abundance of extensive river systems tion and resources generated may, in the existing on many other continents. For long run, reduce the level of litigation this reason alone our rivers are particu­ and encourage out-of-court settlement 1 larly precious. The few extensive sys­ as other parties recognise the River­ tems that carve their way through this keeper as a force to be reckoned with. ancient land are of great ecological and The idea of Riverkeepers The Hudson River has benefited often commercial importance. immeasurably from its US Riverkeeper I Although our rivers are offered some was spawned in England organisation. Litigation, and the thr�at protection by Fisheries and Wildlife of more has persuaded New York C,�, departments, which prosecute for ' a $US750-million where fishing clubs hired Council to initiate 1 breaches of particular Acts and regula­ watershed-protection program, entailing tions, problems do exist. For instance, 'Keepers' to protect the hiring of over 500 environmental one State department does not generally officers and technicians, as well as the litigate against another, so where an commencement of a variety of other salmon streams from ts. environmentally insensitive activity is environmentally beneficial projec . e being carried out by another State of reasons to behe� There are plenty t department directly, or where a depart­ poachers and polluters. that a similar initiative would be_nefi ment issues a licence for a private body riverine enVJro_n· many of Australia's ­ to discharge effluent or otherwise affect ments. The concept is not overly idealis a river adversely, there is usually noth­ tic and the Hudson River example ha_� ing that Fisheries can do. In practice, work. Ma b ' dernonsti·ated that it can � \1 5 they won't bite the hand that feeds them. broader scale. Greater resources enable is time we seriously considere There is also a variety of independent them to collect evidence on polluters a country where . ou� applicability in ciou conservation organisations, such as the and others who abuse the river, which is rivers are a particularly pre Australian Conservation Foundation then presented to a specialised legal resource. and Inland Rivers Network, and public­ organisation (like the EDO in Australia) interest litigation bodies, such as the for litigation. Essentially, a Riverkeeper Further Reading R' (keepe,,. Environmental Defenders Office organisation ensures the sensible man­ Cronin, J. & Kennedy, R.F., 1997. The ,ve (EDO), which often combine to champi­ agement of riverine resources in the Scribner: New York. on many worthy environmental causes interests ------of commercial and recreational . . Bache/or of in the legal arena. However, as com­ fishermen, agriculturalists, public-inter John Christopher <;azeck1 is a . f ­ t!1e_ [Jn tv ersity o mendable and effective as these institu­ Law and Economics from 11 est groups and other parties committed ng En ir­ tions are, they do not have the resources to maintaining the biological integrity of Sydney. He is currently assisti ]he Diui­ to deal with all the problems facing our onmental Defenders O/fi�e (SJ 11 eY a river. sion) public-interest /tt1.g atwn. rivers. So what are the options? The Each major river system in Ausb·alia with answer may lie in the United States. could have a Riverkeeper (particularly John Cronin was born into the first the Murray-Darling system), devoting Word is an opinion pier� The Last ,.,eu� generation of children who were forbid­ time and effort exclusively to the river in and does 110/ necessarily ref/eellile den to swim in New York's Hudson question. A full-time 'Keeper' would be of the A11stralia11 \/11se11m. River clue to the high level of pollution. appointed to patrol the river in a vessel -2000 ER 19 99 80 NATURE AUSTRALIA SUMM 1 BACK ISSUES AND SUPPLEMENTS

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See them during the day as we shine some light on these fascinating creatures. 25 September 1999 - 12 February 2000 9.30 to 5 daily. Adults $10 Children $5 Family $20.