This study examined the occurrence, relative abundance and condition of platypuses in the upper catchment of the South Esk River, in north-east Tasmania, Australia, and the impact of past forestry activities on the occurrence of platypuses in first order headwater streams. The main trapping sites were in twenty first order streams, eight second-fourth order headwater streams and one fifth order stream reach. Additional trapping was also undertaken in the South Esk River and farm dams. Sites were trapped during late spring/mid summer and early autumn. A total of 78 individuals were caught in the study area. Platypuses were caught at all sites trapped in the second-fourth order and fifth order stream reaches and in nine of the twenty first order streams. Catch success was greatest in the fifth order stream reach and lowest in the first order streams. There was a trend toward a higher proportion of juvenile/subadult males in the lower order stream sites. For the higher stream orders, a higher proportion of individuals was caught during the summer, however for the first order streams, a higher proportion was caught during the autumn trapping period. Information collected on the body mass, body length and condition of individuals indicated smaller individuals with a higher tail fat index in the lower order streams. There was a trend toward a lower occurrence of platypuses in the first order streams, which had been disturbed 15 years previously by forestry operations compared to first order streams with relatively undisturbed catchments. Differences in occurrence of platypuses were related to differences in the ‘instream’ and riparian characteristics of disturbed streams compared to undisturbed streams. Headwater streams form a large proportion of a river system. Although they provide more marginal habitat for the platypus than larger river reaches, their disturbance may be an important land management issue in the conservation of this species, particularly in river catchments where the species is impacted by other environmental changes or disease.

The current and historical distribution of the platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus was studied in the Richmond River catchment northern New South Wales in order to determine whether changes in distribution have occurred over the past 60-70 years, sightings were collected from residents, government departments and by reviewing existing records. A range of methods was used to collect platypus sightings from residents, including a media campaign, questionnaires and a resident survey, where people in more remote areas of the catchment were approached and asked if they had sighted platypuses. The public provided information on 300 sites. Eighty-two per cent of these were occupied by platypuses, 11% were previously but no longer occupied by platypuses, and 6% were sites where platypuses have never been recorded. Public sightings indicate that platypuses are widely distributed throughout the catchment, and that they are more commonly sighted in areas of basalt than sandstone substrates. The distribution of platypuses appears to have contracted in some parts of the catchment.

The use of small mesh size gill and drum nets in the inland fishery until around 1950 probably had a considerable impact on platypus populations in most New South Wales rivers. The prohibition of nets in the capture of introduced salmonid species by the Fisheries Act , 1902 and the current fishing regulations have provided a good deal of protection to the species in most water bodies of the State. However, it is probable that the present overlap of commercial (and illegal) fishing operations with the distribution of platypuses in the lower Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers, and their affluent streams, are suppressing platypus numbers. An experiment indicated that the legal drum nets used in the industry are less of a threat to platypuses than the use of gill nets and the illegal nets used by poachers. Banning of gill nets from the industry and stringent law enforcement would largely protect platypus populations in the inland rivers. The current regulations of the eel fishery in New South Wales should minimize the impact of this fishery on the platypus.

A community-based survey was conducted to establish the current distribution of the platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus in the Huon River catchment, southern Tasmania. The species was found to be common and sighted in waterbodies throughout the Huon River catchment. Fewer platypuses were sighted in the eastern part of the catchment, where rainfall is lower and mudstone is the dominant geology. The absence of platypus sightings from some rivers needs further investigation as it may reflect geology, stream ecology or land use practices. Smaller waterbodies such as farm dams and creeks appeared to provide important habitat. A number of platypuses were also observed in estuarine areas where salinity levels were high. The survey also indicated that the platypus is an effective icon species for raising community awareness of the issues surrounding catchment management and river protection.

ABSTRACT Most biologists, particularly Australian biologists, are aware that the initial description and attempts to classify the echidna and platypus were surrounded by controversy. Fewer are aware of the important roles played by two eminent scientists, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in Paris and Richard Owen in London, in the debate as to whether the platypus and echidna were really mammals, and whether they laid eggs. Geoffroy argued that they were egg-laying but could not possibly lactate; Owen argued that they lactated but could not possibly lay eggs. Because of these and many other aspects of their biology, monotremes featured prominently in debates about classification of animals and the transmutation of species, and involved many important scientists of the time. These arguments can only be understood in the context of the development of science in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century, and how that was influenced by the social context. Early ideas of evolution, or transformism, were attractive to radical thinkers, whereas social conservatives were anxious to show that the boundaries between types of animals, just like the boundaries between social classes, were erected by God and could not be crossed.

ABSTRACT Genetic diversity at loci concerned with fitness is an important part of the ability of a wild population to adapt to changes in its environment, including climatic events, disease and pollution. Research into the effects of genetic diversity on the impacts of disease on wildlife populations has focussed on genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). This study investigated the genetic diversity at the MHC class II DZB gene, as well as the distribution of alleles of the same gene, for platypuses Ornithorhynchus anatinus in the Seabrook Creek Catchment in northwest Tasmania. This study detected 10 previously identified alleles and two previously unreported alleles at the MHC Class II DZB locus in 18 platypuses from the Seabrook Creek Catchment. An additional sequence isolated from two individuals was consistent with a pseudogene. Alleles were reasonably well distributed geographically through the catchment, but there was evidence of a degree of isolation at one site. Consistent with evidence that smaller wildlife populations have relatively low genetic diversity, and that there is relatively slow gene flow between river catchments, the observed genetic diversity at the MHC Class II locus was lower than those in larger previously studied river catchments but higher than those in two island populations. Consequently, this population of platypuses may have a limited capacity to respond to new infectious challenges, such as the fungal disease mucormycosis.

In 1921 a photograph of a thylacine Thylacinus cynocephalus carrying a chicken in its mouth appeared in The Australian Museum Magazine with the caption “copyright photo from life - H. Burrell”. In 1926, A.S. Le Souef and Harry Burrell used the same photograph to illustrate the entry for the thylacine in The Wild Animals of Australasia . Robert Paddle (2000) considers the picture to be one of the chief causes of a “blossoming of the construction that the thylacine was a significant poultry predator” and notes that the photograph has been used in many published works. However, a former associate of Burrell suggests that the figure in the photograph is not a live animal, but a mounted specimen placed against a “bush background”. With the assistance of digital imaging programs, a close analysis of the glass plate negative of this photograph is undertaken to determine the veracity of the claim. I conclude that the figure in the photograph is indeed a mounted specimen. Certain circumstantial evidence connected with the historical and textual contexts in which the image was produced and published is also discussed. As one of the last in a series of negative representations of the thylacine in zoological works, the photograph's prolonged uncritical reception demonstrates the deceptive potential of photography and suggests that we see what we are conditioned to see.

State Forests of me southwestern slopes of New South Wales were surveyed for ground dwelling mammals utilizing hair baps (42 sites), small mammal traps (11 sites), nocturnal searches (253 sites), scat and animal sign observations, opportunistic observations and records from unpublished studies in me region. A total of 13 indigenous and 10 exotic ground-dwelling mammal species were identified. No threatened species were encountered, although some evidence suggesting the presence of a Potaoo Potorous sp. and Smoky Mouse Pseudomys fumeus was found in Bago and Maragle State Forests. Hair tube trapping (1 170 large baps for an average of 18 nights each and costing 226 person hours) revealed the presence of nine species/genera. Swamp Wallabies Wallabia bicolor , were the most commonly detected species. Small mammal trapping in swampy environments of Bago and Maragle State Forests (1 100 trap nights costing 52 person hours) detected the presence of Bush Rat Rattus fuscipes , Dusky Antechinus Antechinus swainsonii and Brown Antechinus Antechinus stuartii . Rattus fuscipes proved to be abundant in some localities. Records made by nocturnal survey (253 sites costing 306 person hours) revealed 14 ground-dwelling mammal species, notably Long-nosed Bandicoot Perameles nasuta . All the techniques were judged to be of value for broad forest surveys as no technique covered all species. Hair trapping had the greatest limitations in this study but is still of value if the method is used as a preliminary technique.

ABSTRACT The task I am promoting in this paper is to expand the conservation and management focus from just threatened vertebrate species to include all non-threatened vertebrates. I reason that it is easily possible to do so because it lies within our long-standing legal and public interest in our native birds and mammals, and more recently, reptiles and frogs. The shortfall in achieving the aspiration to conserve biodiversity is evident by examining both the Commonwealth and NSW governments' official State of the Environment reports. The rise of threatened species in the conservation agenda, called ‘endangered species’ in NSW until 1995, is examined from the time the legal interpretation of endangered species became important in 1991with a decision by Justice Paul Stein of the NSW Land and Environment Court. Endangered species had captured both the legal and popular imagination, leading to the passage of the Endangered Fauna (Interim Protection) Act 1991 (NSW). In 1992, 26% of the birds, mammals, frogs and reptiles of NSW became listed as endangered species. The non-threatened species became the neglected 74% of the vertebrate fauna of NSW. In short, this emphasis hinders the conservation of biodiversity in its broadest sense. I argue here that expanding beyond threatened species recovery to studying, managing and conserving all of our native vertebrate fauna is a major step forward in achieving our aim of conserving biodiversity.

Reproductive steroid (oestradiol and testosterone) levels were measured in the faeces of ten wild dugongs ( Dugong dugon ) from Moreton Bay Australia, using radioimmunoassay (RIA). All faecal samples, including from both genders and from both immature and mature dugongs contained detectable levels of oestradiol and testosterone. Faecal testosterone levels were high relative to oestradiol concentrations in all samples, regardless of gender. The highest levels of testosterone occurred in adults (body lengths ≥250 cm), in both males (1146.7 ng g -1 dry weight faeces) and females (691.1 ng g -1 dry weight faeces). The highest oestradiol levels were recorded in adult females (37.2 ng g -1 dry weight faeces). In mature dugongs, the ratio of testosterone to oestradiol was higher in adult males than in females, suggesting that this ratio may be a better indicator of sex than levels of individual steroids. This study represents the first step in an investigation into assessing the reproductive status of free-ranging dugongs.

Charles Hoy, a collector for the US Museum of Natural History, spent three years in Australia (1919-1922) collecting at more than a dozen locations around Australia. He collected over one thousand specimens of mammals of more than 100 species. This paper collates the species collected by location and provides detailed quotes from his field notes and letters. Typically, his field notes and letters describe his collecting localities, detail what fauna he was able to collect, detail what additional fauna he had expected to collect, and speculate on the major land use changes impacting on the fauna. His letters and field notes provide valuable insights into the status of the Australian fauna and the perceived threats to its persistence at that time. He recorded a range of threats to mammals in temperate Australia, and singled out the desert fauna as being particularly vulnerable. In contrast, he recorded few threats in tropical Australia. Introduced foxes and cats, poisoning and trapping techniques to control rabbits, land clearing and hunting in localized areas, and regular burning of the forests were important factors in temperate Australia. He provides information of the timing of decline of mammals, distinguishing animals in the size category of the larger native rodents (the first to decline) and those the size of small wallabies (a subsequent decline). His fieldwork indicated an approximate synchrony in decline of medium-sized mammals at two distant locations (Eyre Peninsula in South Australia and Tamworth in New South Wales) in the period 1915-1918, which coincided with the eruptive wave of the fox invasion. In addition, he recorded the decline of specific species that he attributes to a combination of disease and predation from feral cats (the native cats Dasyurus spp.) or predominantly to disease (koala Phascolarctos cinereus ).

Trpor is the most effective means for energy conservation available to mammals and is characterized by substantial reductions in body temperature (T b ) and metabolic rate (MR). Most Australian terrestrial mammals are small with high mass-specific energy requirements and, although it is widely believed that torpor is not needed in a ‘warm’ country like Australia, a large number of species are heterothermic (i.e. capable of changing T b , in contrast to homeothermic mammals with a constant high T b ). These heterothermic species (estimated >43% of terrestrial Australian native mammals) employ periods of daily torpor or prolonged multi-day torpor (hibernation) to conserve energy. Daily torpor is used by dasyurids (e.g. dunnarts, antechinus, quolls), myrmecobiids (numbat), tarsipedids (honey-possum), petaurid possums (e.g. sugar glider), rodents (but only known in the introduced house mouse), and small megabats (blossom-bats). During daily torpor, T b is reduced from ~35°C during the active or normothermic phase to ~I0-25°C during torpor, and the torpor MR (TMR) is ~30% of the basal metabolic rate (BMR). Daily torpor is often, but not exclusively, used during the rest phase and, between bouts of torpor, animals usually forage and feed. Recent evidence shows that free-ranging arid zone dasyurids may employ daily torpor on every day in winter and that torpor may last twice as long as in captivity (often up to around 20 hours), which will reduce energy expenditure and thereby food requirements by up to 80%. Hibernation or prolonged torpor has been observed in the Monotremes (echidna), marsupials (pygmy-possums and feathertail glider) and insectivorous bats (e.g. long-eared bats). During prolonged torpor, which often, but not exclusively, is expressed in winter, T b is usually reduced to a minimum of ~0-10°C, and torpor bouts may last for several days or weeks, but in all species periodic arousals with brief normothermic periods (hours) between bouts of torpor have been observed. The TMR during hibernation is extremely low and can be as little as 1 -5% of the BMR; daily energy expenditure can be reduced to only 3% of that in active individuals permitting survival on stored body fat for months without the need to feed. Daily and prolonged torpor in many Australian mammals appear to be opportunistic and not only important for survival of adverse seasonal conditions, but apparently also for dealing with unpredictable events such as droughts and perhaps fires and floods. As torpor substantially reduces energy requirements its use will in turn reduce the need for foraging and consequently exposure to predators. Predator avoidance by employing torpor and minimising foraging may be one of the reasons why none of the known heterothermic Australian species has gone extinct. In contrast many of the similar-sized perceived homeothermic species, such as rodents and bandicoots, have suffered high rates of extinction possibly because they must forage long and frequently to meet large energetic demands and thus are more vulnerable to predation by introduced foxes and cats.

ABSTRACT The International Thylacine Specimen Database (ITSD) is the culmination of a major cooperative effort between museums and universities that hold specimens of the thylacine ( Thylacinus cynocephalus ), to produce the first comprehensive study of all that is known to physically remain of this unique species. The ITSD was first published in April 2005 as a digital resource on CD-ROM. It was subsequently revised in 2006 (2nd rev.), 2009 (3rd rev.), 2011 (4th rev.) and 2013 (5th rev.) The sixth revision (2017) will be accessible as an online resource and currently totals some 6.09GB of data and images. This paper details its findings, describes the specimen types, and gives a brief review of the sources of many of the specimens and the collectors who collected them.

Riparian zones are an important habitat for a range of bat species and, as a consequence, understanding whether land use practices such as timber harvesting influence their use is important for conservation and management. This small-scale study used bat activity as a measure of the use of riparian and up-slope zones along headwater streams by bats, and to determine whether past timber harvesting influenced the use of these areas by bats by comparing regrowth with no retained riparian buffers and mature forest. This study found no significant differences in bat activity between treatments, but did find a trend of higher bat activity in riparian zones compared to up-slope zones, particularly in regrowth forest. However, many sites had little to no bat activity indicating activity was influenced by factors not measured in this study. Despite limited data, this study highlights the potential value of retaining riparian habitat in harvested forests for bats, as is practised elsewhere in Australia, and the need for future research into the effectiveness of forest retention measures for wildlife.

A survey of the mammals of the coastal State Forests, adjacent farmlands and coastal national park near Bega, on the south coast of New South Wales, was undertaken between 1979 and 1984. A total of 39 native and 10 exotic species was found in the area surveyed. That 17 (44%) of the native species were bats demonstrates the importance of considering this order of mammals in both future surveys and forest management. The presence of species varied according to the land-use category of the area surveyed. State Forest was richest and contained 37 of the 39 native species found. Coastal national park supported 17 native species, while only 7 were found on farmland. Of the 39 species, 14 were considered rare in the survey area, 11 were uncommon and 14 common. Of the twelve methods of detection used, the most productive was predator scat analysis, which yielded 24 native species and 9 exotic species. The survey was conducted using a wide variety of detection methods in logged and unlogged, burnt and unburnt forest and through drought years. Observations were made about the impact of logging, fire and drought on native mammals and proposals made for their conservation and management.