| Riekoperla darlingtoni | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Plecoptera |
| Family: | Gripopterygidae |
| Genus: | Riekoperla |
| Species: | R. darlingtoni |
| Binomial name | |
| Riekoperla darlingtoni (Illies, 1968) | |
Riekoperla darlingtoni, the Mount Donna Buang wingless stonefly, is a species of stonefly in the family Gripopterygidae that is endemic to Australia.
Riekoperla darlingtoni is found on Mount Donna Buang, a mountain peak in the Victorian Central Highlands which lies in one of the oldest and highest areas of dissected Palaeozoic rocks (formed approximately 500 million years ago) in the Central Highlands of Victoria. The area is also popular tourist attraction throughout the year and the summit is a Scenic Reserve.
The area providing habitat for Riekoperla darlingtoni supports tall sclerophyll forest dominated by alpine ash ( Eucalyptus delegatensis ) with myrtle beech ( Nothofagus cunninghamii ) as a dominant understory tree species. The surrounding forest is dominated by mountain ash ( Eucalyptus regnans ). It apparently occurs only in the area within 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) of the summit of Mount Donna Buang, particularly on the southern slopes and is restricted to the small temporary streams which flow through forest dominated by alpine ash.
The adult stonefly lives within rolled pieces of alpine ash bark suspended in low vegetation along natural drainage courses and in the vicinity of streams. The aquatic nymphs live under stones and in silty gravel in the drainage lines. Of particular scientific interest is the species' ability to survive the annual drying of its habitat, both in the egg stage and by burrowing down to a damper level and its seasonal flexibility in growth and emergence times, which enhances survival during the extremes of climate experienced on mountain tops.
The species has not been discovered in other similar areas despite deliberate searches. [2]
The small brown, wingless stonefly, is one of the only two wingless stoneflies in Australia, and the species was first collected by Darlington in 1931 from the Mount Donna Buang area. A distinguishing feature of the species is its long antennae (up to 100% of its body length).
The Mount Donna Buang Wingless Stonefly has a very small home range thought to be only 2–4 km, this area is protected within the Yarra Ranges National Park but threats still remain. Fuel or herbicide spillages, changes in hydrology and a proposed Mountain Bike Track called the Warburton Mountain Bike Destination allegedly threaten Mount Donna Buang Stonefly. The Mount Donna Buang Stonefly has recently been reassessed as Critically Endangered under the Victorian State legislation the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.
The Alpine National Park is a national park located in the Central Highlands and Alpine regions of Victoria, Australia. The 646,000-hectare (1,600,000-acre) national park is located northeast of Melbourne. It is the largest National Park in Victoria, and covers much of the higher areas of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria, including Victoria's highest point, Mount Bogong at 1,986 metres (6,516 ft) and the associated subalpine woodland and grassland of the Bogong High Plains. The park's north-eastern boundary is along the border with New South Wales, where it abuts the Kosciuszko National Park. On 7 November 2008 the Alpine National Park was added to the Australian National Heritage List as one of eleven areas constituting the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves.
The Mount Buffalo National Park is a national park in the alpine region of Victoria, Australia. The 31,000-hectare (77,000-acre) national park is located approximately 350 kilometres (220 mi) northeast of Melbourne in the Australian Alps. Within the national park is Mount Buffalo, a moderately high mountain plateau, with an elevation of 1,723 metres (5,653 ft) above sea level.
Deua is a national park located in New South Wales, Australia, 320 kilometres (200 mi) south of Sydney, and 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of Canberra. The nearest towns on the coast are Batemans Bay, Moruya and Narooma.
Yarra Ranges National Park is located in the Central Highlands of Australia's southeastern state, Victoria, roughly 107 km northeast of Melbourne. Established in 1995, and managed by the statutory authority Parks Victoria, the park features a carbon-rich, temperate rainforest as well as a subalpine, eucalypt-dominant forest on its northern plateau. The park is home to large groves of mountain ash, the tallest species of tree in Australia, and among the tallest in the world, with specimens reaching 80 metres in height. A wide diversity of flora, fauna and fungi make their home across the park's 76,003 hectares, including iconic Australian species such as bandicoots, echidnas, kangaroos, koalas, platypuses, possums, sugar and greater gliders, wallabies and wombats. There are nearly 200 documented species of birds in the area, with at least 60 herpetofaunal species, thousands of invertebrates and worms, over 900 types of fungi and mushrooms, and over 1,000 plant species. Among the conservation challenges facing Yarra Ranges National Park are climate change and invasive species of weeds, as well as the interaction of native species with non-native, introduced invasive animals, such as European hares and rabbits, domestic sheep, feral cats and dogs, red foxes, South Asian sambar deer, and European red and fallow deer.
Eucalyptus regnans, known variously as mountain ash, giant ash or swamp gum, or stringy gum, is a species of very tall forest tree that is native to the Australia states of Tasmania and Victoria. It is a straight-trunked tree with smooth grey bark, but with a stocking of rough brown bark at the base, glossy green, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of between nine and fifteen, white flowers, and cup-shaped or conical fruit. It is the tallest of all flowering plants; the tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 100 metres tall in Tasmania.
Leadbeater's possum is a critically endangered possum largely restricted to small pockets of alpine ash, mountain ash, and snow gum forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbourne. It is primitive, relict, and non-gliding, and, as the only species in the petaurid genus Gymnobelideus, represents an ancestral form. Formerly, Leadbeater's possums were moderately common within the very small areas they inhabited; their requirement for year-round food supplies and tree-holes to take refuge in during the day restricts them to mixed-age wet sclerophyll forest with a dense mid-story of Acacia. The species was named in 1867 after John Leadbeater, the then taxidermist at the Museum Victoria. They also go by the common name of fairy possum. On 2 March 1971, the State of Victoria made the Leadbeater's possum its faunal emblem.
The Australian Alps are a mountain range in southeast Australia. The range comprises an interim Australian bioregion, and is the highest mountain range in Australia. The range straddles the borders of eastern Victoria, southeastern New South Wales, and the Australian Capital Territory. It contains Australia's only peaks exceeding 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in elevation, and is the only bioregion on the Australian mainland in which deep snow falls annually. The range comprises an area of 1,232,981 ha.
Mount Baw Baw is a mountain summit on the Baw-Baw Plateau of the Great Dividing Range, located in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. The name is from the Yarra-Yallou, Gunna-Kurnai people of Gippsland. It is of uncertain meaning, but possibly signifies, echo, or ghost.
Mount Bogong,, located in the Alpine National Park and part of the Victorian Alps of the Great Dividing Range, is the highest mountain in Victoria, Australia, at 1,986 metres (6,516 ft) above sea level.
The Victorian Alps, also known locally as the High Country, is a large mountain system in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria. Occupying the majority of eastern Victoria, it is the southwestern half of the Australian Alps, the tallest portion of the Great Dividing Range. The Yarra and Dandenong Ranges, both sources of rivers and drinking waters for Melbourne, are branches of the Victorian Alps.
Mount Stirling is a mountain in the Victorian Alps of the Great Dividing Range, located in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia. The mountain has an elevation of 1,747–1,749 metres (5,732–5,738 ft) above sea level.
Mount Donna Buang is a mountain in the southern reaches of the Victorian Alps of the Great Dividing Range, located in the Australian state of Victoria. Approximately 94 kilometres (58 mi) from Melbourne with an elevation of 1,250 metres (4,101 ft), Mount Donna Buang is the closest snowfield to Melbourne.
The New England-Acadian forests are a temperate broadleaf and mixed forest ecoregion in North America that includes a variety of habitats on the hills, mountains and plateaus of New England and New York State in the Northeastern United States, and Quebec and the Maritime Provinces of Eastern Canada.
Eusthenia nothofagi is a species of stonefly in the family Eustheniidae. It is endemic to Australia, where its range is restricted to Victoria. It is known only from the Otway Ranges and its common name is the Otway stonefly.
The New Guinea Highlands, also known as the Central Range or Central Cordillera, is a long chain of mountain ranges on the island of New Guinea, including the island's highest peak, Puncak Jaya, Indonesia, 16,024 ft (4,884 m), the highest mountain in Oceania. The range is home to many intermountain river valleys, many of which support thriving agricultural communities. The highlands run generally east-west the length of the island, which is divided politically between Indonesia in the west and Papua New Guinea in the east. These mountains stretch from the Weyland Mountains starting in Wondama Bay Regency in the west to the Milne Bay Province in the east.
Victoria is the southernmost mainland state of Australia. With an area of 227,444 km2 (87,817 sq mi), it is Australia's sixth largest state/territory, comparable in size to the island of Great Britain or the U.S. state of Utah. It is bound to the northwest by South Australia, directly north by New South Wales, and also shares a maritime border with Tasmania across the Bass Strait to the south. Most of Victoria's northern border lies along the Murray River. The eastern half of the state is dominated by the Australian Alps and the surrounding highlands of the Great Dividing Range, which also to a lesser extent extend far into the west of the state and ease off after The Grampians. By comparison the north and northwest of the state is extremely flat with little prominence.
Established in 1965, the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve is located 45 km east of Melbourne in the Upper Yarra Valley, near the towns of Yellingbo, Launching Place, Yarra Junction, Hoddles Creek, Cockatoo, Emerald, Monbulk and Seville. Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve is a narrow riparian reserve with stream-frontage land along the Woori Yallock, Shepherd, Cockatoo, Macclesfield and Sheep Station Creeks.
The Toolangi State Forest region in southern Australia extends from Mount Monda in the south up to Murrindindi in the north and includes the township of Toolangi. The forest is mainly eucalypt forest that has regrown from the 1939 Victoria Bushfires.
Scabby Range Nature Reserve is a heritage-listed protected area at Sams River Fire Trail, Yaouk, New South Wales, Australia. It was established on 3 December 1982 and added to the former Australian Register of the National Estate on 30 June 1992. It was added to the Australian National Heritage List as part of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves on 7 November 2008.
Thaumatoperla alpina is a species of stonefly in the genus Thaumatoperla, and are the largest Australian stonefly. They are endemic to the Bogong High Plains area of the Victorian alps, Australia.
