Australia is hot and dry. Ask any tourist on sun-drenched Bondi Beach and they will affirm this well-known paradigm. Yet although much of our flora has adapted to thrive in our baking interior and dry open woodlands, many unique plants have evolved in a very different setting: the frigid landscape of the Australian High Country....
Bee stings are worse than wedgies. Still, I’m squirming and dreading bending over while wearing this bright white bee jumpsuit. My supervisor informs me – while smirking – that the tag of the suit reads ‘Extra Large’, making it clear that my 170-centimetre stature must be considered gargantuan in the beekeeping world. There is only...
In Victoria’s far south-west, the Red-tailed Black-cockatoo survives in a fragmented landscape of stringybark forests within a matrix of agricultural lands. The birds here are a distinct subspecies of Red-tailed Black-cockatoo, Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne or the South-eastern Red-tailed Black-cockatoo, isolated from others of their kind by thousands of kilometres. Their life history is inextricably tied to...
Beautifully strange in form, members of the Echinodermata phylum appear to drift between plant and animal. However, these unusual organisms are actually more closely related to humans than plants, or even insects. This animal group includes some of the most “sea-like” animals such as seastars, but also less appreciated ones like sand dollars and, my...
Picture yourself in a forest. Damp green mosses clothe giant trees, veiled in slow swirling columns of mist. The varied calls of lyrebirds and parrots echo through the woody labyrinth as you wade through a waist-deep sea of ferns which ripple and sway against the trunks of the mighty Mountain Ash. A pantheon of small...
‘[The Pacific Ocean] has been a frontier to explore, a space to conquer, a resource to plunder – and a place of infinite wonder…’ Have you ever wondered why the ‘Pacific’ Ocean is named that way? In November 1520, Ferdinand Magellan, after a perilous voyage through the rough seas of the Atlantic, finally reached a...
Koalas are a beloved Australian icon, arguably as popular amongst tourists to Australia as the Giant Panda is for those visiting China. Yet, across their range koalas are causing a commotion amongst conservationists and land managers. The Northern Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus adustus) is threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, while the Southern Koala (Phascolarctos...
