Wildlife Australia
Summer 2007

One way of attracting attention is through the use of colour, the theme of this issue, and the peacock mantis shrimp is a striking example. Striking in more ways than one. It is brilliant to look at, even with our relatively limited range of colour vision, and its own colour vision system is complex and remarkable.

It is an ambush predator that buries itself in rubble, and the strike force it uses to bash prey is so powerful, it can reputedly break fingers and smash glass up to 2cm thick, making it perhaps less popular with aquarists than it is with the many researchers drawn to its astounding capabilities.

When it comes to colour, who is the champ? Current money is on the mantis shrimp.Credited with the most complex animal vision system known, mantis shrimp have multiple vision receptors for colour analysis, compared to three in humans, according to University of Queensland researcher Prof Justin Marshall.

Their eyes move independently and they smash or spear prey with a powerful flick of their frontal limbs in one of the fastest animal movements ever recorded. Fortunately, these remarkable ambush predators only grow to about 40cm; the peacock mantis shrimp reaches about 12cm. This colourful specimen was photographed by Gary Bell; the species is found near coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific region, including Australian waters.

 

Contents...

Hatched in hope

By Frank Harrison

He brought her sticks, they clapped their bills, extended their wings, built a nest – and several years later, finally, they fledged the first captive-bred jabiru chick.

The Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary in Port Douglas laid claim to their proudest achievement when their jabiru chick finally fledged and left the nest – the first successful captive breeding of the species. Like many successes, it took years to achieve.

 

In the zone: the origin and future of the Kuranda treefrog

By Conrad Hoskin

This process of species formation in hybrid zones was first suggested over a century ago but this treefrog study was one of the first demonstrations that it has occurred in nature. The Kuranda treefrog formed as a distinct species within approximately 7000 years of the green-eyed treefrog lineages having been back in contact, which is considered fast on an evolutionary timescale.

Sitting here beside this gently flowing stream near Kuranda, in north Queensland, you might think the Kuranda treefrog is an abundant, secure species, but you would be mistaken. This is a unique spot. Less than 1000 adult frogs live only in short sections of a handful of neighbouring streams, in an area earmarked for intensive residential development.

 

Rare as a red-finned blue-eye

By Rod Fensham

If water in the desert is rare, how rare is a colourfully named fish that occurs in only a few spring-fed desert pools in central Queensland?

Australia’s most imperilled freshwater fish, the 15mm-long red-finned blue-eye, lives in a handful of permanent desert springs in a remote and unusual area of central western Queensland. It is not just a rare species; it is a rare genus.

 

Boring Brown?

By Steve van Dyck

You will be astonished to hear that of the 389 species covered in the latest edition of Mammals of Australia, only three native mammals appear with the word 'brown' in their common name, the brown antechinus and two bandicoots, the Northern Brown and the Southern Brown.

However, in the psychology of colour, brown is solid, reliable and, well, honestly, a bit dull. But for some of Australia's many brown mammals, this sensible colour is part of a life that is anything but dull...

 

Talking colours: explorations along and beyond the visible spectrum

By Lee K Curtis

Is colour just a pigment of your imagination? Actually, much of it is physiological – which helps explain why one animal may see what is invisible to another.

What colour is a guinea flower? Yellow, you say? A bee sees it as blue. Rats, mice, cats and dogs would see it as yet another shade of grey. But certain birds, amphibians, insects and reptiles see a mixture of numerous shades of all sorts of colours that we humans can’t even begin to imagine...

 

Seahorses: their legends & lives

By Dianne Hausler

Slip beneath the tranquil surface of the sea into another world. There, clinging to leafy seagrasses, twisted mangrove roots and vivid corals, a legendary marine animal shows its talent for colour.

In Greek mythology, hippocampi (seahorses) pulled the chariot of Poseidon while the Nereids – sea-nymph sisters – rode on their backs. The Nereids and their mounts assisted storm-threatened sailors. Thus, the seahorse was adopted as a symbol of safe sea travel. In seaport towns, seahorses often appeared on coins, heraldry and signs. Perhaps the HMS Seahorse, a frigate built in 1748, aspired to legendary protection through its name...

 

On Borrowed Time

An interview with Professor David Lindenmayer

What happens when we think we live in an economy instead of an environment?

'We are over-committed. Humans take an engineering approach to the environment, and we don’t leave enough of an ecological margin. Up to 90 percent of our fisheries are over-harvested. We’ve over-committed our land, forests and water resources. If I were a saw-miller in Tasmania, I would oppose the pulp mill because it will use up the resource too quickly.'

‘Students are going into business and IT. We’re not seeing the recruitment we need in science to tackle our environmental problems. And it’s not surprising. It’s hard to get jobs in environmental science. The pressure is on a few people to come up with all the answers, and they burn out.

 

Wildlife Australia CyberJungle

• Ask a Biologist

• Ngadjonji ... Rainforest People

• Project Seahorse

Also in this edition:

Editorial, City Animal, Trekabout Photography, NatureWatch, Books Reviews, Summer Skies, Young and Wild, Scratchings and Rustlings, Comment, WPSQ in Action, Swamp Cartoon and our regular environmental crossword.

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