Christmas Island collection

Collection Highlights | Updated 10 years ago

A large white bird roosting on its nest
Christmas Island collection
Photo by Ron Johnstone

Christmas and Cocos-Keeling islands are Australian external territories in the north-east Indian Ocean. These remote islands contain a number of endemic species and are important breeding places for many seabirds. The Western Australian Museum has substantial collections from Christmas Island and in 2004 published a review of the birds of these islands in volume two of the Handbook of the Birds of Western Australia.

Specimens from these islands also compliment our holdings of material from Indonesia. Many of the vagrants that occur on Christmas Island originate from Indonesia.

Ornithology (Birds) Collection