Land for Wildlife – Red Tailed Phascogale discovery

Credit: Rob McMilliam

Land for Wildlife has over 2000 members across the state all working to protect the biodiversity of their patches of bush.

Recently a Land for Wildlife member in the south east Wheatbelt had an exciting discovery. A weekend fauna monitoring event was held with other Land for Wildlife members and the most commonly found mammal was the endangered Red Tailed Phascogale.

Red Tailed phascogales are a small carnivore which spend most of their time hunting in the trees. Wandoo and sheok woodlands are their favourite habitat.

They have largely disappeared across the Wheatbelt and survive in a number of nature reserves including Tutanning and Boyagin as well as being found on private land around the Brookton to Wagin area. However they haven’t been seen in this part of the Wheatbelt for some years.
The most exciting part of this discovery is that it shows that these small mammals do persist in small oasis of remnant bush land and until you go looking you might never know.
This land holder is now planning to implement a fox baiting regime to protect these animals.
For more information on this or on Land for Wildlife email Avril Baxter on: avril.baxter@dec.wa.gov.au

Interesting Fact: The male red-tailed phascogale invests so heavily in breeding that their immune systems fail, and just before they reach 12 months of age, they succumb to stress-related illnesses and die.

Philotheca basistyla

Philotheca basistyla is an erect shrub to 1 m tall and 80cm across. Plants typically have glossy or waxy dark green leaves up to 9 mm long and 1 to 1.5 mm wide that are thickened, circular in cross-section, glandular and ascending.

There are numerous solitary white flowers at the ends of the branchlets. Petals are around 6-6.5 mm in length and oval-shaped with pointed ends. They are hairless outside and have downy hairs on the inside. Flowering generally occurs between August and October. It is only known to occur in a geographic range of only a few kilometres between Trayning and Kellerberrin in deep yellow sand in dense scrub heath vegetation amongst Eucalyptus leptopoda (Tammin mallee), Grevillea eriostachya (flame grevillea), Allocasuarina acutivalvis (black tamma) and Melaleuca conothamnoides.

Philotheca basistyla was listed as critically endangered in 1998. It is now thought that this species is likely to become extinct due to a continuing decline in the condition of the population and its habitat. Recovery actions are being implemented to ensure the conservation of this species but there is an urgent need to find more populations or suitable habitat for a planned translocation of this species in the near future.

The Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) is keen to work with the community and land managers to conserve Philotheca basistyla. If you have seen this plant or think you may have habitat on your property that would support this species, we would like to hear from you. You can do this by contacting the Flora Conservation Officer at the DEC Central Wheatbelt district office in Merredin on (08) 9041 2488.

Your support and assistance in conserving Western Australia’s threatened flora is greatly appreciated.

Wurmbea densiflora

In late May this year, Nathan Heal (Wheatbelt NRM) and Mike Griffiths (WWF) were visiting a bush property near Kellerberrin and stopped to photograph a small lily-like plant with bright pink flowers. The plant was one of a group of lily relatives called nancies, typically with tiny delicate pale coloured flowers – and was later identified as Wurmbea densiflora by botanical staff at the WA Herbarium.

This species is well known from the Murchison and Gascoyne regions but is very uncommon this far south, with the Herbarium having very few collections from the central Wheatbelt. Having relatively large, bright pink flowers, it is one of the very few nancies that can be spotted from a moving vehicle! It is often found around granite outcrops, as was the case at Kellerberrin where it was surrounded by York Gums and small granite-loving plants like pincushions. Click on the photo for more information.