Welcome to the Saving our Species newsletter Summer edition
The quality of habitat is a lifeline for our threatened species – the land, vegetation, airspace, waterways. All the ecological spaces that our species need to prevail.
Saving our Species (SoS) works with individual species and ecological communities to help protect the important connections between threatened species, their habitats and life cycles.
This Summer edition of SoS News features stories through the lens of the four elements Earth, Air, Water and Fire – as well as highlights of our SoS people and events:
- Earth: BioBlitz - survey and celebrate and SoS’s collaboration with PlantBank - seeds of success
- Air: our ‘Top Gun’ pollinators featuring the Regent Honeyeater
- Water: Blinky Drinkers for koalas and Water Week splash
- Fire: Tarengo Leek Orchid - cultural burning
Also in this newsletter:
- In the Field: meet Dr Sarah Bell, volunteers Jack Nesbitt and Eric Hurn, and the rediscovered Crest-tailed Mulgara
- Green Room: discover underground, deceptive and unassuming plants!
- Gatherings and Gongs: from EcoTas17 to BioNode, read all about it.
Thank you to those who continue to contribute their time, energy and expertise into the Saving our Species program.
In the field
The Green Room
Gatherings & Gongs
World Wetlands Day
Featured species
Common name: Crest-tailed Mulgara
Scientific name: Dasycercus cristicauda
Conservation status: Presumed extinct (NSW), recently rediscovered in NSW for the first time in a century*
Description: A small carnivorous marsupial with a distinctive fin-like crest of black hairs on its long tail (over half its total body length which ranges from 170mm for a female to 230 mm for a male). Tan to ginger coat above and creamy white on the belly. Females have eight nipples in the pouch. The hindfoot has long hair that folds over a third of the sole from lateral side. Males weigh up to 185 g, females up 120 g (Masters 2008). Occurs on sand dunes with a sparse cover of Sandhill Canegrass (Zygochloa paradoxa) or areas around salt lakes with Nitre Bush (Nitraria billardieri).
Diet: Includes insects, other arthropods and small vertebrates. Able to consume 25% of its own weight in food and can subsist without drinking water or even eating succulent plants, because it is able to extract sufficient water from a diet of lean meat or mice
Distribution: The Crest-tailed Mulgara is sparse but widespread in southern parts of the Simpson Desert, Tirari and Strzelecki Deserts in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland (Masters 2008).
*Read about its rediscovery in Mulgara in the media.
Dates for your diary
2 February - World Wetlands Day
11 February - International Day for Women and Girls in Science
3 March - World Wildlife Day
4 March - CleanUp Australia
22 March - World Water Day
24 March - Earth hour
Saving our Species in the news
In addition to strong social media, there was coverage of at least 30 Saving our Species items in print and electronic media over the last two months. Here are a few examples from around the state:
- Goulburn Post - The state government has purchased land for a koala habitat near Canyonleigh
- ABC news - Abseiling botanists discover rare plants growing on cliff face in Limpinwood Nature Reserve
- Crookwell Gazette - Search for rare orchid
- Manning River Times - How to quoll-proof your hen house
- Newcastle Herald - Underground orchid found in Barrington Tops
- Mudgee Guardian - Barking up the right tree to save the barking owl
- SBS News - Old-fashioned romance saving NSW species
- The Sydney Morning Herald - Scientists play cupid in bid to save critically endangered smoky mouse
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