Mammals
The forests support many small mammals, especially where old or dead trees provide hollows for nests and shelter. In the last 200 years many animals have lost their habitat due to clearing. Unless we can reverse this habitat loss on private lands, these animals will have to depend on national parks for their long term survival.
Locally such animals include the koala, spotter-tailed quoll (a beautiful cat-like marsupial), small parma wallaby, rabbit-sized rufous bettong and long-nosed potoroo, the greater glider and the common dunnart (a mouse-size insect eater).
Birds
Gibraltar Range National Park is rich in more than 140 species of bird life. Rare species like the rufous-scrub bird need the rainforest and moist undergrowth of the wet forests. The dry forests provide the richest habitat for birds, as their flower nectar supports many honeyeaters. Look out for the spotted quail-thrush and golden whistler in the dry forests and the wonga pigeon in the wet forests.
The rufous scrub-bird (Atrichornis rufescens) is found in the warm temperate rainforests and ecotones of Gibraltar Range and the adjacent Barool National Park. This species is a member of a surviving family of songbirds (Atrichornidae) which arose at the time of Gondwana. Populations have been declining over the past 200 years and the planning area is now a stronghold for this vulnerable species. The communities in the Gibraltar Range form a large proportion of the total known remaining population of the species.
Amphibians and reptiles
The park's lizards, snakes and frogs are restricted to particular habitats and are rarely seen.
The forests and swamps in the park support many kinds of frog, including the unusual pouched frog, a curious rainforest-dependent species. The male of this frog raises his young tadpoles in pouches on his flanks.
Philoria sp. nov. B, the locally endemic species of sphagnum frog, is currently being formally described and named. It has been recorded in Gibraltar Range National Park and is found in rainforests and wet open forest near streams and seepage lines.
Invertebrates
A recent report has been prepared for the invertebrate fauna of the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia. Endemic species of velvet worm (type locality Gibraltar Range) and spiny cray have been described from the park.
