Latest news with #Nullarbor
ABC News
5 days ago
- Science
- ABC News
Long-lost photos of extinct butterfly bandicoot found in museum storeroom
Rohan Long was sifting through century-old archives of an anatomy professor when he came across a curious series of black and white photos of landscapes and native mammals. "They stood out to me because they were a bit older than most of the other objects that were there," Mr Long, curator of the University of Melbourne's Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, said. He recognised the photos were a continuation of a previously discovered series taken (or orchestrated) by the anatomist and naturalist Frederic Wood Jones in the 1920s. But he had no idea just how significant these images were, especially two depicting bandicoots. One was a side profile portrait of a living adult, the other a heavily painted-over photo of a juvenile nestled in a human hand. Mr Long was perplexed by the species description written on the back of the frames by Professor Jones. "He'd used a three-part scientific name [Perameles myosura notina]," Mr Long said. "It just made it more confusing because that combination of names is not found anywhere today. So I really was completely stumped." Mr Long sent the images to mammalogy curator Kenny Travouillon at the Western Australian Museum, who immediately realised they portrayed an extinct species of bandicoot he and a colleague described in 2018. They named it the Nullarbor barred or butterfly bandicoot (Perameles papillon) due to the distinctive butterfly-shaped patch on its rump, Dr Travouillon said. As well as showing the animal's ear markings and unique pattern of barred fur, one of the photos was also linked to a location: "Ooldea" in the Nullarbor region. Mr Long, who'd always been fascinated by historically extinct species, was stoked to discover the only known photos of the animal. With further digging, he came across another photo of the bandicoot hiding in plain sight, but misidentified. It was first printed in a newspaper in 1924 but the original glass slide, which is kept at the South Australian Museum, was simply labelled "bandicoot". "[The three images] are amazingly significant because they depict living representatives of a species that's now extinct," Mr Long said. So what happened to the bandicoots in the photographs, and their species as a whole? Delving into historical museum correspondence and the writings of Professor Jones provides some answers. Professor Jones, an Englishman, taught human anatomy at the University of Adelaide in 1919. He was also interested in the anatomy and ecology of Australian animals and wrote a series of influential books called The Mammals of South Australia. Perameles myosura notina was referred to as a Nullarbor form of what was then thought to be one barred bandicoot species (now understood to be several) that lived from southern Western Australia to east of Adelaide. But in the 1920s, when his books were published, this overarching species of barred bandicoots was seemingly restricted to the Nullarbor because of factors associated with European colonisation. The professor, who was was concerned by Australia's staggering loss of mammals even by the 1920s, believed all barred bandicoots of southern Australia were about to be wiped out entirely. So he tried breeding them. "He had a shed at the University of Adelaide that was his little menagerie, and he used to breed marsupials and keep marsupials and other animals on the grounds," Mr Long said. Live butterfly bandicoot specimens collected by traditional owners on the Nullarbor were given to the remote train station master at Ooldea Siding, who sent them to Adelaide. "Often when you trace back to where that animal actually came from, it's been collected by an Aboriginal person," Mr Long said. "And they were very rarely, if ever, acknowledged by name." Many of the bandicoots didn't make it to Adelaide alive. They fought each other to death, Professor Jones wrote: Although they are extremely gentle when kept as pets, they are desperately pugnacious among themselves. On one occasion eight live specimens were sent from Ooldea. All eight were dead and almost devoid of hair when they arrived in Adelaide. But in the bandicoot corpse pouches were four young, two males and two females from different litters. They also seemed to be dead, but were revived. Unfortunately, when they were older, one female killed the other, then fatally injured her first breeding partner. When she had babies with the other male, she killed and ate most of them "even when they were grown to half their adult size", Professor Jones wrote. Unlike other bandicoot species, butterfly bandicoot females are 20 per cent larger than males, Dr Travouillon said. "So the females were making the decisions about the breeding rather than the males, and they were very, very aggressive compared to other species of bandicoots." Mr Long believes the photographs were probably of the butterfly bandicoots raised by Professor Jones but none of the animals moved with him to Melbourne in 1930. And just a few years later, the butterfly bandicoot was extinct. Thirty-four mammal species are believed to have gone extinct since European colonisation in Australia. And researchers didn't even know the butterfly bandicoot had disappeared until Dr Travouillon described it as a separate species after coming across specimens in museums around the world. The butterfly bandicoot likely fell victim to foxes, which caused a wave of extinctions as the predator moved westward across Australia, Dr Travouillon said. "They [butterfly bandicoots] should have gone extinct in 1910, but they managed to survive until the 1930s. "And I suspect it's because [the species] is so much more aggressive and it's also got a very unusual way of escaping." Professor Jones wrote that, when alarmed, the butterfly bandicoot would "pause, and then, in an instant, spring into the air and vanish in the most remarkable manner" instead of just speeding away like other species. Dr Travouillon thinks this behaviour might have confused foxes, allowing the butterfly bandicoot to last longer than other small mammals in Australia. One lesson from the loss of the butterfly bandicoot is the importance of examining museum specimens, according to Dr Travouillon. By looking at collections around the world, scientists can discover still-living species in need of conservation help. And even though the butterfly bandicoot is gone, knowing more about its life history could help with future rewilding efforts. Genetic work has found the butterfly bandicoot branched off 3 million years ago from extinct desert bandicoots and still-living Shark Bay bandicoots (Perameles bougainville). Dr Travouillon said species related to extinct animals could be introduced into areas the latter once lived to recover the ecosystem. For instance, mammals that dig holes, such as bandicoots, play a vital role in sowing seeds. "Once they're gone … there's no more holes where plant seeds can accumulate, and the seeds actually need that to germinate," Dr Travouillon said. "So bringing back a [similar species] to do that job is really beneficial for the environment. It will help the plants to come back." Mr Long believes people should see the rediscovered photos of the butterfly bandicoot as a reminder of what we stand to lose. "It's worth remembering and getting to know these animals, even after their extinction," he said. "Because it's part of a broader narrative, which is pretty important for us to be aware of in 2025. "They're poorly known because they went extinct … they're gone because of the actions of the European colonists of Australia." Mr Long's words echo the thoughts and sentiments of Professor Jones from his mammal handbooks 100 years ago: Australia has a heritage for which it must accept responsibility. It must be prepared to conserve the living, to collect and preserve the dead, and to make provision for the proper study of the fauna in all its aspects.
ABC News
6 days ago
- Climate
- ABC News
Need for Feed Australia truck convoy hits Nullarbor for South Australia drought relief
"The true essence of Australia." That's how volunteer truck driver Inaya Stone describes the huge convoy snaking its way across the Nullarbor from Western Australia to South Australia, laden with desperately needed drought relief for SA farmers. "The most Australian thing you can do is helping someone out that needs a hand, and you know, reaching out and letting them know that you're there," the 26-year-old told ABC News. "I think that there's so much more to it than just delivering hay or feed or whatever you're delivering. "I think you're just delivering hope at the same time. "Someone knows that you're thinking of them." Ms Stone is driving one of 85 trucks piled high with hay and straw — more than 6,000 bales in total — that set off from WA's Fraser Ranges station on the Western Nullarbor Plain on Friday afternoon bound for Ceduna. From there, the trucks will travel to Wudinna, where the first of the bales are expected to be unloaded to farmers in need. Relief is expected to be provided to about 400 farming businesses in SA, where severe drought has hit throughout the state's agricultural regions. Many areas have recorded record-low rainfall over the past 12 months, with the Mid North and the upper Eyre Peninsula the worst affected, according to data from the Bureau of Meteorology. However, widespread heavy rain has fallen across SA this week, including in agricultural areas, and is expected to continue over the weekend, bringing some relief. The massive interstate logistical exercise is a project between charities Farmers Across Borders and Need for Feed, with support from the South Australian government. The trucks were loaded with fodder from farms across WA's Wheatbelt over the past week before setting off on their epic serpentine journey, which Ms Stone expected would be slow going. "I worked out there's about three and a half kilometres worth of trucks, so once you spread that out over the highway, it takes a long time to get anyone anywhere," she said. Ms Stone, who is from a farming background herself, said her family had been involved in the hay convoys for more than a decade when aid group Farmers Across Borders was formed. She said her own experiences meant she had an affinity with SA farmers suffering the effects of drought. "We moved to Esperance 13 years ago now after we had a bunch of bad years in a row and had to sell the farm," she said. "So I fully understand firsthand how the feeling is for these people, and that just having someone that's there for you makes a big difference."
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Couple's 'wild adventure' crossing the Nullarbor in Tesla with 4 per cent battery
Crossing the Nullarbor is not for the faint-hearted. But imagine travelling the isolated 1,200km stretch in a Tesla that only has 4 per cent battery left. That was the nail-biting reality for Perth couple Abby and Patrick Kearns, who had to travel 20km/h under the speed limit at one point to make sure they'd be able to reach their next charging station. Incredibly, their journey across Australia was their first time ever driving a Tesla. After purchasing a Model S from Canberra, the pair decided to fly over at the end of May to pick it up and drive it back home to Roleystone, in Perth's southeast. Abby told Yahoo News the road trip was "quite the inauguration" to the world of EVs, but they loved every moment of the "wild" adventure. Their 3,700km trip was split up over four days and three nights, with the most challenging part 'definitely' the Nullarbor. One 460km stretch had no charging stations at all, with the couple putting their faith in their new car's long-range battery. "It was a bit of a leap of faith really, and in order to make it there with the 4 per cent battery left, we had to drive 20 kilometres under the speed limit the whole way, just to save the battery," Abby said. "We were both on the edge of our seats for the last maybe 10 kilometres, as we were watching the battery going down and the computer screen telling us to turn around and try to find another charger. "I was like, 'Oh my God'. Because if you get stuck out there, there's literally nothing as far as you can see. So we'd have to end up getting a tow truck out to tow us somewhere. It would have been pretty wild." The couple made it to the charging point just in time, but the low-voltage stations can take hours to charge a vehicle. By the time they were ready to continue it was night, and they were faced with a whole new set of challenges. Once again they were forced to drive slow — but this time it was due to the wildlife. "There are kangaroos jumping out of the middle of nowhere every couple of minutes. So we were in high alert driving in the pitch black across the Nullarbor, but there was also a fog along the road that meant we couldn't see past our car for more than maybe five metres. So at some points we're just crawling at like 40 kilometres an hour in the dark," Abby said. At times, finding a charger wasn't the issue — it was getting phone reception. "Your car will not charge if your phone signal and the app is not online," Abby said. 'We've never been so dependent on technology in our lives!" One night, they were desperate for a bar of signal and Paddy managed to finally find a weak spot of reception by standing on a chair and propping his phone near the air conditioner. "Both of us barely slept that night," Abby recalled, as they were consistently checking that both the phone and the car were still charging. In another hurdle, Abby and Paddy were pulled over at the South Australian border after accidentally bringing fruit into the state. South Australia has strict quarantine laws — mainly to protect the state from fruit fly — and it's illegal to bring fresh fruit and vegetables across the border. "We crossed the border without even thinking about anything, and we had loads of fruit in the car," Abby said, adding that Paddy was taken into a demountable building and "questioned about his intention with the fruit" for half an hour. She said they're expecting a fine in the mail, but even that couldn't put a dampener on their trip. "It was just another hurdle that we overcame. Another crazy little moment," Abby said. "All challenges aside, it was such an adventure for us, you know? We really loved it." Their Tesla is now one of only two of its kind in the state. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
ABC News
29-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
Burial of WA Mirning ancestors after more than 100 years shines light on violent history
Shilloh Peel can "feel in her bones" when she is home. WARNING: This article contains references to Indigenous people who have died and describes violence of a graphic nature. Even as a child, driving south-east from Kalgoorlie with her aunties, the first breath of sea breeze rising off the Nullarbor Plain always seemed like a greeting. "You could hear it, feel it, and see it," she says. The Mirning woman, who represents the Apical Dick Stott family line from Western Australia's Nullarbor, hopes the feeling still registers in the bones of her long-dead ancestors. On March 14, the remains of eight Mirning ancestors were returned to their country and buried. It is understood that the ancestors lived between the late 1800s and 1979, and their remains had most recently been stored at the WA Museum. While little is known about how they died, it is understood some may have been alive during a tragic period in the Nullarbor's history. Oral histories and a 140-year-old police report indicate murders and poisonings may have taken place on Mirning country during some of their lifetimes. Ms Peel, who chairs the WA Mirning People Aboriginal Corporation (WAMPAC), says she hopes her relatives are now at peace. "I get teary-eyed just thinking about it," she says. John Graham says the burial marked the best day of his 83-year-old life. The Mirning elder, who was recovering from a recent operation at the time, has spent decades lobbying to bring his eight ancestors back to their country. There was no way he was going to miss it. "It was up near 45 degrees," he remembers. The remains of the seven repatriated Mirning people were taken from the Nullarbor region between 1900 and 1991, with the eighth removed at an unknown date. They then fell into the hands of the WA Museum. Mr Graham and the WA Museum's head of anthropology and archaeology, Ross Chadwick, have been working to return them to country for decades. "They shouldn't have been taken away from there in the first place," Mr Graham says. "But back in them days, when they found remains, they just took them and put them in the museum." Mr Chadwick says the practice caused great pain across Indigenous communities. "[Repatriation] is a way of trying to heal that hurt," he says. "To address the trauma that comes from that and to empower communities to make decisions around the care of their ancestors in a way that provides them with strength and some sort of comfort." A WAMPAC spokesperson says two of the ancestors had been found in a Nullarbor cave in 1991 by cave explorers. It is understood the pair died in the late 1800s after possibly getting lost in the cave and running out of food and water. The spokesperson says five others were found close to Eucla — three in the early 1900s, one in 1979, and another at an unknown date — and taken by police, anthropologists, doctors and professors. Another man was taken, by an unknown person, from the Nullarbor Plain at some point before 1907. Mr Graham says he is relieved his ancestors are finally back where they belong. "Finally achieving something like that was a good feeling," he says. While it is not known how these ancestors died, Mr Graham says some may have lived during a horrific time in the region's history. "There was a lot of violence," he says. Mirning oral histories describe murders and poisonings on the Nullarbor Plain following colonisation. Mr Graham says knowledge of these struggles, passed down through his family, had made him even more motivated to bring the eight Mirning people home. In 1881, WA police constable George Truslove investigated claims that pastoralists William McGill and his partners Thomas and William Kennedy were mistreating Mirning people in the region. The hand-written police report, which has been seen by the ABC, included claims that McGill killed two people by feeding them poisoned pudding. Historian Peter Gifford, who analysed the police report in 1994, says McGill was also accused of shooting and cutting the throats of other Mirning people. "Truslove's report effectively accused McGill and the Kennedys of multiple murder," Mr Gifford's paper states. "Its contents were mostly hearsay, which then, as now, was not admissible in a court of law. "Yet, as an experienced police officer, he must have been aware of the gravity of such allegations, which would be seen at high governmental levels, and he cannot therefore have made them lightly." The allegations have not been widely reported. But Mr Gifford's paper goes on to note that similar allegations were made by overland telegraph stationmasters at Eyre and Eucla eight years later, which were again ignored by authorities. A Government Gazette extract shows McGill went on to be appointed a "protector of Aborigines" in 1894, despite the allegations. "The Mirning people of the southern Nullarbor were still denied anything resembling natural justice," the paper states. It also references the graves of 16 Aboriginal people "who had all come to violent ends" at the pastoralist's hands. A WAMPAC spokesperson says the impact of past brutality continues to be felt. "Oral histories speak of widespread violence, with many different individuals and institutions involved in acts of genocide," the spokesperson says. "This was part of a broader, systemic pattern seen across Australia. "Today, we're encouraged by the positive working relationships we have with pastoralists on Mirning country, who have been supportive of the Mirning people returning home." Traditional owners say they do not want to disclose the location of the recent burial site, out of fear it will be vandalised. But it is marked with a boulder and plaque. After the burial, around 60 people attended a barbecue with the Mirning community, where traditional foods were served and a speech was made. Ms Peel, whose parents are original WA Mirning native title claim applicants, says even though she never met her ancestors, it was a heartwarming experience. "They are home. They are at rest," she says.
RNZ News
25-06-2025
- Science
- RNZ News
World's only known eyeless wasp discovered mummified in Nullarbor Plain cave
By Peter de Kruijff , ABC The mummified remains of a male blind cave wasp found underground in the Nullarbor. Photo: Supplied/Jess Marsh Jess Marsh had spent 45 minutes crawling and twisting through the claustrophobic limestone tunnels of the Nullarbor Plain when she first saw it. Perched on the wall of a cave chamber was the almost perfect mummified remains of small, reddish wasp about 2 centimetres long with translucent wings. Its stand-out feature? It had no eyes. "This wasp is the only wasp in the world that is known to have adapted like that to a cave life," Dr Marsh said, an entomologist and arachnologist - an insect and spider expert - at the University of Adelaide. "The first specimen was actually climbing up the wall of the cave ... like they'd been freeze-dried." University of Adelaide entomologist and arachnologist Jess Marsh collecting samples in a Nullarbor cave. Photo: Supplied/Steve Milner The preserved insect, yet to be taxonomically described, was one of the crowning discoveries from a research expedition in April with cavers from the Australian Speleological Federation (ASF). Eleven caves on the Western Australia side of the 200,000 square kilometre Nullarbor region were examined in a biological survey, funded by the Australian Research Council and the Hermon Slade Foundation. The caves were selected based on previous sightings of underground critters by cave-exploring citizen scientists. ASF president Andrew Stempel said the trip, which found specimens at five of the sites, had been an "incredible" collaboration connecting caver knowledge with expert scientists. "It took many years and many cavers and a lot of hard yards," he said. The wasp was found in a cave that contains passages that run for about 10 kilometres, which had previously been mapped out by scientists. It wasn't the only remains the researchers found either. The cave was full of thousands of mummified bodies of spiders, cockroaches, centipedes and other insects, preserved thanks to the salty cave conditions. A dead cockroach and centipede found preserved in a salty Nullarbor cave. Photo: Supplied/Steve Milner and Jess Marsh Dr Marsh said when she first locked eyes on the site she was captured by its otherworldly beauty. "It's not like anything I've ever seen before," she said. "[It had] the most amazing cave decorations I've ever seen, so stalactites, stalagmites and huge long salt straws [thin pillars of salt that sway in the cave breeze]. "It's like this weird world frozen in time that's completely dominated by invertebrates... some of the invertebrates have died almost mid-action." No living critters remain because of some sort of invertebrate world-ending cataclysm that occurred an unknown number of years ago. What excited Dr Marsh was the potential relationship between the blind arachnids and the wasp, which she thought was from the spider-hunting family called Pompilidae. Hundreds of dead invertebrates were found in a Nullarbor cave including a concentrated group of spiders in a spot dubbed "party rock". Photo: Supplied/Steve Milner "It's a really interesting story if they've both evolved to a cave-adapted lifestyle where they've lost their eyes independently but are linked through parasitism," she said. Collection manager at the Australian Museum - not part of the recent expedition - Matt Shaw said finding a wasp and spiders with regressed features was fantastic for science. "Because as [Charles] Darwin pointed out... regressed animals including cave animals were an important source of evidence for understanding evolution," he said. The exact age of the invertebrates in the mummy mausoleum was yet to be analysed, but Dr Marsh said they were so well preserved 'they could have died yesterday'". A dead Troglodiplura spider specimen could possibly be a new species. Photo: Supplied/Steve Milner Elsewhere on the trip, the expedition found some creatures that were still kicking, including two species of eyeless spiders. Both could fill up the palm of your hand but are incredibly different. One, which hangs underneath a web weaved between rocks is believed to be from the genus Tartarus, named after the prison for titans in Greek mythology. The second is large, hairy and probably part of the Troglodiplura genus, but distantly related to tarantulas, funnel webs and trapdoor spiders. "We don't know yet if it's a new species or if it's one of the already described ones," Dr Marsh said. There are five spiders in Troglodiplura, including four that were described only a few years ago from tiny fragments found in museum collections. Both Tartarus and Troglodiplura spiders have only been found on the Nullarbor. And there is a belief among arachnologists that some Nullarbor spider species may only be found in single caves rather than multiple sites. Dr Marsh said the latest trip, along with other research, challenged the idea the region was not particularly special for biodiversity. "The number and the diversity of species that may be surviving and living in the caves on the Nullarbor is actually much higher than we we initially thought," she said. A live web-weaving blind spider likely to be a member of the Tartarus genus. Photo: Supplied/Steve Milner With the growing knowledge of underground species comes a greater awareness of potential threats. In caves accessible to mammals, Dr Marsh said invasive foxes proposed a big threat to blind spiders. A site with living arachnids from the most recent trip had fox scat that contained spider fangs. "The risk of extinction for a lot of those [underground] species through development, impact by humans, changes to water movement across the landscape... is really very high," she said. While the South Australia side of the Nullarbor is in the process of being made a World Heritage site, the WA side is not. All of the recent cave surveys were done within an area ear-marked for the largest proposed green energy project in Australia. The 70 gigawatt Western Green Energy Hub would see about 3000 turbines and six million solar panels installed across 20,000sqkm of land. The project has come under scrutiny from cavers concerned about potential impacts to the unique cave systems. Project chief executive Raymond Macdonald said less than five percent of the total surface area would be impacted, and that the company was currently mapping a directory of caves, sink holes and karst feature locations. "This new accuracy will ensure that significant features are totally avoided when selecting infrastructure locations," he said. The project's management is currently in discussion with state and federal regulators about what environmental studies will be needed as the project proposal is reviewed. An Indigenous land-use agreement is also being negotiated with the area's Traditional Owners, the Mirning. A WA Mirning People Aboriginal Corporation spokesperson said the whole ecosystem in the Nullarbor was significant. "Our priority is always to protect the environment as a whole, while placing particular emphasis on rare and endangered species," they said. - ABC
