Corymbia intermedia
Corymbia intermedia or the pink bloodwood is a bloodwood native to Queensland and New South Wales. More it is found on a narrow belt ranging from Cooktown to north of Newcastle. Richard Thomas Baker first described the pink bloodwood in 1901, naming it Eucalyptus intermedia, the species name derived from the Latin adjective intermedius and based on the intermediate nature of the oils between the red and yellow bloodwoods. In 1995, the genus Eucalyptus was split into three genera by Ken Hill and Lawrie Johnson, with E. intermedia transferred into Corymbia. Hill and Johnson classified Corymbia intermedia in its own series Intermediae, A combined analysis of nuclear rDNA and morphological characters published in 2009 found it to be related to C. trachyphloia and C. hendersonii. C. intermedia and other species were placed in the large section Septentrionales within the subgenus Corymbia. The common name comes from the gum veins in the wood; the pink bloodwood is a medium to tall tree -- 30 m in height with a 10 -- 20 m spread.
The rough bark is tesselated, light extends the branches and trunk. The lanceolate juvenile leaves are 5–10 cm long by 2–2.5 cm wide and dark green above with paler undersides, while the leathery adult leaves are 10–15 cm long by 1.5–3 cm wide and dark green in colour. Flowering occurs from December to March and the profuse perfumed white or cream flowers are up to 2 cm in diameter. Seven flowerheads make up an inflorescence. Flowers are followed by the development of the urn-shaped gumnuts which are 1.2–2 cm long and 1–1.5 cm across. The pink bloodwood resembles the red bloodwood, the two species co-occur in central New South Wales; the latter species can be distinguished by winged seeds. The species is found in New South Wales from Gloucester northwards into Queensland, as far as to Cape York—a total range of 2,500 km —and within 100 km of the eastern coastline, it trives on loamy and sandy soils, has been found on altitudes of up to 1,200 metres, with annual rainfall of 750–2200 mm and predominantly summer rain.
It grows in open forest, or alone trees grow in closed forest or on the margins of rainforests. It is associated with such species as carbeen, broad-leaved stringybark, forest red gum, narrow-leaved ironbark, scribbly gum, grey gum, flooded gum, red mahogany, black sheoak and red wattle in coastal north Queensland. In Bungawalbin National Park in northern New South Wales, the squirrel glider has been observed biting and gouging into the bark to make a wound on the trunk of the pink bloodwood and lick the sap out; the behaviour has been recorded for the yellow-bellied glider for this species. Study of the forest habitat of the sugar glider and mahogany glider found that the presence of pink bloodwood was corellated with the presence of the former and absence of the latter species. Study of the impact of perioding burning in forest in southeastern Queensland found no significant difference in trunk diameter of pink bloodwoods in unburnt forest compared with forests burnt every two or four years.
The dark pink to reddish-brown heartwood is durable usable for building fences and bridges. The sawdust of pink bloodwood is an irritant to eyes and skin
Laughing kookaburra
The laughing kookaburra is a bird in the kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae. It is a large robust kingfisher with a dark eye-stripe; the upperparts are dark brown but there is a mottled light-blue patch on the wing coverts. The underparts are white and the tail is barred with rufous and black; the plumage of the male and female birds is similar. The territorial call is a distinctive laugh, delivered by several birds at the same time, is used as a stock sound effect in situations that involve a jungle setting; the laughing kookaburra is native to eastern mainland Australia, but has been introduced to parts of New Zealand and Western Australia. It occupies dry eucalypt forest, city parks and gardens; this species occupies the same territory throughout the year. It is monogamous. A breeding pair can be accompanied by up to five grown non-breeding offspring from previous years that help the parents defend their territory and raise their young; the laughing kookaburra breeds in unlined tree holes or in excavated holes in arboreal termite nests.
The usual clutch is three white eggs. The parents and the helpers feed the chicks; the youngest of the three nestlings or chicks is killed by the older siblings. When the chicks fledge they continue to be fed by the group for six to ten weeks until they are able to forage independently. A predator of a wide variety of small animals, the laughing kookaburra waits perched on a branch until it sees an animal on the ground and flies down and pounces on its prey, its diet includes lizards, worms and are known to take goldfish out of garden ponds. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classed the laughing kookaburra as a species of least concern as it has a huge range and large population, with no widespread threats; the laughing kookaburra was first described and illustrated by the French naturalist and explorer Pierre Sonnerat in his Voyage à la nouvelle Guinée, published in 1776. He claimed to have seen the bird in New Guinea. In fact Sonnerat never visited the laughing kookaburra does not occur there.
He obtained a preserved specimen from one of the naturalists who accompanied Captain James Cook to the east coast of Australia. Edme-Louis Daubenton and François-Nicolas Martinet included a coloured plate of the laughing kookaburra based on Sonnerat's specimen in their Planches enluminées d'histoire naturelle; the plate has the legend in French "Martin-pecheur, de la Nouvelle Guinée". In 1783, the French naturalist Johann Hermann provided a formal description of the species based the coloured plate by Daubenton and Martinet, he gave it the scientific name Alcedo novæ Guineæ. The current genus Dacelo was introduced in 1815 by the English zoologist William Elford Leach, is an anagram of Alcedo, the Latin word for a kingfisher; the specific name novaeguineae combines the Latin novus for new with Guinea, based on the erroneous belief that the specimen had originated from New Guinea. For many years it was believed that the earliest description was by the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert and his scientific name Dacelo gigas was used in the scientific literature but in 1926 the Australian ornithologist Gregory Mathews showed that a description by Hermann had been published earlier in the same year, 1783, thus had precedence.
In the 19th century this species was called the "laughing jackass", a name first recorded in An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales by David Collins, published in 1798. In 1858 the ornithologist John Gould used "great brown kingfisher", a name, coined by John Latham in 1782. Another popular name was "laughing kingfisher"; the name in several Australian indigenous languages were listed by European authors including Go-gan-ne-gine by Collins in 1798, Cuck'anda by René Lesson in 1828 and Gogera or Gogobera by George Bennett in 1834. In the early years of the 20th century "kookaburra" was included as an alternative name in ornithological publications but it was not until 1926 in the second edition of the Official Checklist of Birds of Australia that the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union adopted the name "laughing kookaburra"; the name comes from Wiradhuri, an Aboriginal language now extinct. The genus Dacelo contains four kookaburra species of which the rufous-bellied kookaburra and the spangled kookaburra are restricted to New Guinea and islands in the Torres Straits.
The blue-winged kookaburra and the laughing kookaburra are both widespread in Australia. Two subspecies are recognised: D. n. novaeguineae – the nominate subspecies, east Australia and southwest Australia D. n. minor Robinson, 1900 – Cape York Peninsula south to Cooktown The laughing kookaburra is the largest kingfisher. It is a stout, stocky bird 39–42 cm in length, with a large head, prominent brown eyes, a large bill; the sexes are similar, although the female is larger and has less blue to the rump than the male. The male weighs 310–345 g and the female 355–480 g, they have a white or cream-coloured body and head with a dark brown stripe across each eye and more faintly over the top of the head. The wings and back are brown with sky blue spots on the shoulders; the tail is white tips on the feathers. The heavy bill is black on bone-coloured on the bottom; the subspecies D. n. minor is smaller in size. The laughing kookaburra can be distinguished from the sized blu
City of Ipswich
The City of Ipswich is a local government area in Queensland, located in the southwest of the Brisbane metropolitan area, including the urban area surrounding the city of Ipswich and surrounding rural areas. The City of Ipswich is centrally located in the South East Queensland region of Australia. Ipswich governs the outer western portion of the Brisbane Metropolitan Area, Australia, it covers an area of 1,090 square kilometres along the coast about 40 kilometres southwest of Brisbane CBD. To the east is the City of Brisbane local government area, to the west are the rural and agricultural areas of the Brisbane and Fassifern Valleys. Ipswich is the second-oldest local government area in Queensland, after Brisbane. On 16 November 1859, after the enactment of the Municipalities Act of 1858 in New South Wales, a petition containing 91 signatures was received by the Governor of New South Wales seeking to have Ipswich, which at the time had 3,000 people, granted municipal town status; the petition was gazetted the following day, no counter-petition was received.
On 29 November, the letters patent authorised by Queen Victoria which were to make Queensland a separate colony were published in New South Wales, the petition was forwarded to the new Queensland governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. On 10 December 1859, the same day that the letters patent were published in Queensland, the petition was regazetted. On 3 March 1860 the Borough of Ipswich was proclaimed, its first elections were held on 19 April 1860, where John Murphy became its first Mayor; the Municipality's corporate logo was designed by Reverend Lacey H. Rumsey, the rector of St Paul's Church in Ipswich in 1861. Ipswich applied on 22 November 1904 to become a City, the status being conferred by the Government of Queensland on 1 December 1904 and its first mayor was Hugh Reilly. On its declaration, the City of Ipswich covered only the central area of Ipswich itself – what are today considered inner suburbs were parts of different entities. Beginning in 1994 Ipswich adopted an innovative, community-based, information technology project which aimed to make the city a technology hub at the forefront of the growing move towards the information superhighway.
The most prominent feature of the initiative, called Global Info-Links, was the development of a new library with free public internet access and the development of a wide area network to which people could subscribe. In October 2000, the council began erecting cast brass plaques at significance heritage sites. On 13 October 1916, a rationalisation of the local government areas in and around Ipswich was implemented, it involved the abolition of five shires: Brassall Bundanba Lowood Purga Walloonresulting in: an enlarged City of Ipswich by including part of the Shire of Brassall and part of the Shire of Bundanba a new Shire of Ipswich by amalgamating part of the Shire of Brassall, part of the Shire of Bundanba, part of the Shire of Walloon and all of the Shire of Purga an enlarged Shire of Rosewood by including part of the Shire of Walloon an enlarged Shire of Esk by including all of the Shire of Lowood On 29 January 1949, a new Local Government Act was enacted to further amalgamate local government in the Ipswich area, abolishing the Shires of Normanby and Rosewood.
The City of Ipswich was enlarged to include the more urban parts of the Shire of Moreton. The Shire of Moreton was enlarged by the inclusion of the northern part of the Shire of Normanby and all the Shire of Rosewood; the southern part of the Shire of Normanby was transferred to an enlarged Shire of Boonah. The Shire of Moreton amalgamated with Ipswich on 11 March 1995. In March 2000, Ipswich ceded some rural territory in Mount Walker, Mutdapilly and Warrill View to the neighbouring Shire of Boonah. Following the major reforms of local government in Queensland, on 15 March 2008, Ipswich lost the rural areas of Harrisville and Peak Crossing in its southeast to the new Scenic Rim Region. On 31 October 2012, a groundbreaking ceremony for the Ecco Ripley housing development project was conducted by Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale and Sekisui House; the local government has 10 Councillors each representing one division. Each Councillor serves a four-year term; the Mayor is directly elected by the people every 4 years.
Elected mayor of 2016, Paul Pisasale, resigned on 6 June 2017 citing health concerns. Division 7 Councillor Andrew Antoniolli and Deputy Mayor Paul Tully both contested the 2017 Ipswich Mayoral By-Election, held on 19 August 2017. Councillor Antoniolli was elected Mayor with 34.57% of the primary vote and 54.44% after preferences, with Paul Tully winning 30.83% of the primary vote and 45.56% after preferences. After Andrew Antoniolli's election as Mayor, a By-Election for the vacant Division 7 was held on 7 October 2017. David Martin was elected with 23.65% of the vote. |Antoniolli won the 2017 Ipswich City Council Mayoral By-Election, triggered by the resignation of former mayor, Paul Pisasale, charged with multiple counts of corruption. In May 2018 Andrew Antoniolli was charged with seven counts of corruption forcing him to stand down and administrators to take over Ipswich City Council. In August 2018, the Queensland Government passed legislation to dismiss all of the councillors and replace them with an administrator.
At the time of the dismissal, the divisional Councillors were: The City of Ipswich includes the following settlements: 1 - split with Scenic Rim Region2 - not to be confused with White Rock in Cairns Region Ipswich City Council operates three public libraries at Ipswich Central and Redbank Plains. It operates a mobile library service to Booval
Long-nosed bandicoot
The long-nosed bandicoot is a species of bandicoot found in eastern Australia, from north Queensland along the east coast to Victoria. Around 40 centimetres long, it is sandy- or grey-brown with a long snouty nose. Omnivorous, it forages for invertebrates and plants at night. French naturalist Étienne Louis Geoffroy described the long-nosed bandicoot in 1804. Swiss naturalist Heinrich Rudolf Schinz described a large specimen from near Bathurst in the Blue Mountains as a new species, Perameles lawson, in 1825, though the specimen was lost at sea in shipwreck. French naturalist Pierre Boitard described Isoodon musei in 1841, both are now classified as P. nasuta. Two subspecies are recognised: P. nasuta subspecies nasuta is found from western Victoria through eastern New South Wales and north to central Queensland, P. nasuta subspecies pallescens, found from central Queensland through to the Cape York Peninsula. The long-nosed bandicoot is the largest member of its genus, which includes the eastern barred bandicoot and the western barred bandicoot.
It is most related to the eastern barred bandicoot, the two species having diverged from one another in the late Pliocene. Their ancestors diverged from the ancestor of the western barred bandicoot in the Miocene; the long-nosed bandicoot is much less colourful than its relatives, being a sandy-brown or greyish colour. It is nocturnal, non-climbing and omnivorous, its body length is around 40 centimetres, including a tail length of 14 centimetres, it weighs 1.5 kilograms. It has a prominent long nose and small pointed upright ears, a hunched-looking posture, a short tail, a rear-facing pouch, three long, clawed toes on front feet; the droppings are 3.5 centimetres long by 1 centimetre wide. The long-nosed bandicoot has a high-pitched squeak; the species is distributed along the eastern coast of Australia from Cape York Peninsula in Queensland to New South Wales and Victoria. It is found in moist gullies and grassy woodlands. Long-nosed bandicoots benefit from a mosaic of mixed habitats, including open grassy areas that they forage in at night-time and sheltered areas with undergrowth that they retreat to and nest in.
Distributed, it is classified as least concern on the IUCN Red List, with some localised decline in the southern part of its range. Although faring better than many other native mammal species in the face of human impact, the long-nosed bandicoot vanished from much of Sydney in the 1960s, it is restricted to the outskirts such as the upper North Shore and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in the north, Blue Mountains in the west, Holsworthy in the southwest and Royal National Park in the south. The species is a common visitor to gardens of people living near Garigal and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Parks and are well received. Two small populations remain in the inner Sydney urban area: A population at North Head has been designated as endangered by the New South Wales government, it is thought to number around 200 individuals. Sydney's Taronga Zoo is undertaking a breeding program to bolster the population. A population centred around the urbanised suburb of Dulwich Hill in the Inner West was identified in 2002.
Little remnant habitat exists and the numbers are thought to be low, though the bandicoots appear to have adapted to foraging in more urban habitat. The population has been classified as endangered. Long-nosed bandicoots are individuals interacting little when not mating or parenting; the long-nosed bandicoot is omnivorous and nocturnal, foraging for insects, such as beetles and beetle larvae, including the roots of monocots, fungi, Invertebrates make up most of the diet year-round, with spiders, caterpillars and seeds more common food items in summer and cicada larvae, blades of grass, bracts of wattles, underground items such as roots and fungi eaten more in winter. Long-nosed bandicoots spend much of their time digging, leave characteristic conical holes in the ground where they have foraged looking for grubs in the soil, it is found near compost heaps. A field study in Booderee National Park showed that bandicoot numbers markedly increased following increase in invertebrate numbers before declining within two years.
Gestation lasts one of the shortest known of mammal species. The young spend another 50 to 54 days in the mother's pouch before being weaned; the long-nosed bandicoot is a common prey item of the introduced red fox. The greater sooty owl preys on bandicoots; this bandicoot was first bred in captivity by Eleanor Stodart of the CSIRO in 1964. It appears to be straightforward to breed as long. Long-nosed Bandicoot on Animal Diversity Web
Platypus
The platypus, sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young; the animal is the sole living representative of its family and genus, though a number of related species appear in the fossil record. The first scientists to examine a preserved platypus body judged it a fake, made of several animals sewn together; the unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate hoax. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals: the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans; the unique features of the platypus make it an important subject in the study of evolutionary biology and a recognizable and iconic symbol of Australia.
The platypus is the animal emblem of the state of New South Wales. Until the early 20th century humans hunted the platypus for its fur, but it is now protected throughout its range. Although captive-breeding programs have had only limited success, the platypus is vulnerable to the effects of pollution, it is not under any immediate threat; when the platypus was first encountered by Europeans in 1798, a pelt and sketch were sent back to Great Britain by Captain John Hunter, the second Governor of New South Wales. British scientists' initial hunch was. George Shaw, who produced the first description of the animal in the Naturalist's Miscellany in 1799, stated it was impossible not to entertain doubts as to its genuine nature, Robert Knox believed it might have been produced by some Asian taxidermist, it was thought. Shaw took a pair of scissors to the dried skin to check for stitches; the common name "platypus" is the latinisation of the Greek word πλατύπους, "flat-footed", from πλατύς, "broad, flat" and πούς, "foot".
Shaw assigned the species the Linnaean name Platypus anatinus when he described it, but the genus term was discovered to be in use as the name of the wood-boring ambrosia beetle genus Platypus. It was independently described as Ornithorhynchus paradoxus by Johann Blumenbach in 1800 and following the rules of priority of nomenclature, it was officially recognised as Ornithorhynchus anatinus; the scientific name Ornithorhynchus anatinus is derived from ορνιθόρυγχος, which means "bird snout" in Greek. There is no universally-agreed plural form of "platypus" in the English language. Scientists use "platypuses" or "platypus". Colloquially, the term "platypi" is used for the plural, although this is technically incorrect and a form of pseudo-Latin. Early British settlers called it by many names, such as "watermole", "duckbill", "duckmole"; the name platypus is prefixed with the adjective "duck-billed" to form duck-billed platypus. In David Collins's account of the new colony 1788–1801, he describes coming across as "an amphibious animal, of the mole species".
His account includes a drawing of the animal. The body and the broad, flat tail of the platypus are covered with dense, brown fur that traps a layer of insulating air to keep the animal warm; the fur is waterproof, the texture is akin to that of a mole. The platypus uses its tail for storage of fat reserves; the webbing on the feet is more significant on the front feet and is folded back when walking on land. The elongated snout and lower jaw are covered in soft skin; the nostrils are located on the dorsal surface of the snout, while the eyes and ears are located in a groove set just back from it. Platypuses have been heard to emit a low growl when disturbed and a range of other vocalisations have been reported in captive specimens. Weight varies from 0.7 to 2.4 kg, with males being larger than females. The platypus has an average body temperature of about 32 °C rather than the 37 °C typical of placental mammals. Research suggests this has been a gradual adaptation to harsh environmental conditions on the part of the small number of surviving monotreme species rather than a historical characteristic of monotremes.
Modern platypus young have three teeth in each of the maxillae and dentaries, which they lose before or just after leaving the breeding burrow. The first upper and third lower cheek teeth of platypus nestlings are small, each having one principal cusp, while the other teeth have two main cusps; the platypus jaw is constructed differently from that of other mammals, the jaw-opening muscle is different. As in all true mammals, the tiny bones that conduct sound in the middle ear are incorporated into the skull, rather th
Eucalyptus propinqua
Eucalyptus propinqua, known as the Grey Gum or Small fruited Grey Gum is a common eucalyptus tree of eastern Australia. It can grow to 50 metres in height, though is seen between 20 and 30 metres tall. Growing north from Wyong in New South Wales up to south east Queensland, in high rainfall areas, prone to fire. Leaves eaten by koalas. Yellow-bellied gliders eat the sap of the Grey Gum; the timber is hard and heavy. Used for poles, sleepers, heavy engineering construction, marine construction and decking. A Field Guide to Eucalypts - Brooker & Kleinig volume 1, ISBN 0-909605-62-9 page 136
