Plants and Animals

• Introduction
• Dieback
• Contact

Documents for download from this site are in PDF format and you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them. The reader is free and can be downloaded from the Adobe website.

Introduction

The Bronzeback Legless Lizard found only in the western Lake Eyre Basin in areas of undisturbed leaf litter. (Photo: Peter Canty)

A rich variety of wildlife (plants and animals) is found in the natural landscapes of South Australia. These range from the familiar kangaroos, wallabies, birds, eucalypts and wattles to myriads of tiny insects, grasses, mosses, lichens, mushrooms and toadstools.

Our coasts and seas are home to many other kinds of living things, including whales and other marine mammals, seabirds, Little Penguins (450Kb PDF), fish, shellfish, algae and seagrasses.

All of these living things and the communities they live in make up the State’s natural biodiversity. Many kinds still remain to be discovered and described.

Over the last 200 years many non-native plants and animals have escaped to the wild. These weeds and feral pests can be a serious threat to the natural biodiversity. For example, of the total of 4,300 kinds of plants found in the wild in South Australia today, nearly 1,200 or 30% are weeds.

Dieback

Dieback is a general term used to describe a set of symptoms observed when plants (usually eucalypts or acacias) are responding to adverse conditions. Similar symptoms such as yellowing of the leaves, loss of leaves and resprouting from epicormic growth can be caused by a variety of agents - insects, plant pathogens (fungi, bacteria, viruses), nutrient in-balance, herbicides, water stress (drought or salinity) and extreme cold (frost). Plants may recover from attacks by insects, frost and water stress from drought, but others such as salinity, fungal infections (eg "Phytophthora") and Mundulla Yellows are often fatal - killing entire local populations of plants.

The Department for Environment and Heritage has supported a study on "Mundulla Yellows in Eucalyptus (100Kb PDF)" to investigate the causes of this dieback syndrome.

A report "Mundulla Yellows in Australia" has been published by the Mundulla Yellows Task Group.

Mount Lofty Ranges

The Dieback Information Pack has been developed to help landholders assess the health of their native vegetation in the Mount Lofty Ranges.

See Dieback Information Pack: Chart (400Kb PDF); Guide (450Kb PDF) and Datasheet (50Kb PDF)

South Australian Murray Darling Basin

The Dieback Information Pack has been developed to help landholders assess the health of their native vegetation in the South Australian Murray Darling Basin.

See Dieback Information Pack: Chart (350Kb PDF); Guide (550Kb PDF) and Datasheet (100Kb PDF)

Phytophthora

See the following information on Phytophthora:

• Bushwalking factsheet (300Kb PDF)
• Horse Riding Guidelines (150Kb PDF)
• Phytophthora booklet (2.3Mb PDF)
• Phytophthora brochure (300Kb PDF)
• Phytophthora on Kangaroo Island (150Kb PDF)
• Phytophthora Newsletter (PDF file)
• Phytophthora Management Guidelines (850Kb PDF)
• Phytophthora Plant Propagation Guidelines (350Kb PDF)
• Stop the Rot factsheet (100Kb PDF)
• Phytophthora Technical Group

See the following maps on Phytophthora:

Mount Lofty Ranges

• Distribution map for Mount Lofty Ranges (1.5Mb PDF)
• Note for Mount Lofty Ranges map user (50Kb PDF)

Eyre Peninsula

• Distribution map on the Eyre Peninsula (400Kb PDF)
• Note for Eyre Peninsula map user (50Kb PDF)

On this site you will see examples of South Australian plants and animals, and have access to lists and maps of where they are found in nature. For the more adventurous there is help to identify some plants and animals you may find in the bush.

The Enigma Hakea Hakea aenigma is found only in a small area of Kangaroo Island. (Photo: Peter Canty)

Download List of Vertebrates of South Australia (Please note that this is a 6.50Mb PDF and may take time to download)
See Census of South Australia Plants, Algae and Fungi

Contact:

A. Lambert