Discover Western Australia's amazing fauna

Jessica Scholle's blog | Created 1 decade ago

Western Australia hosts a stunning array of diverse and unique fauna. Through Inspiring Australia and in partnership with museums around the nation, the Western Australian Museum recently released an app that showcases Western Australia’s amazing fauna. Here is a short selection of some cute, tiny, massive and surprising animals that you can discover through the app.

Have you heard about the Albany Assassin Spider? This tiny spider - not larger than 4 mm - is endemic to the greater Albany region, which means it is only found in this part of the world. These assassins are nocturnal and solitary predators, hunting other small spiders for prey. The spider use their long, spear-like mouthparts, specialised venom and formidable peg-like teeth to impale their meal.

The Whale Shark is the largest fish in the sea, growing up to 12 metres in length. Despite their gigantic size, the Whale Shark feed only on plankton, including crustaceans, fish eggs and small fishes. Being filter feeders, they scoop their food with their colossal gasping mouths. These massive animals are highly migratory, following plankton productivity, and can be seen seasonally in the Ningaloo Reef area that provides Whale Sharks with an abundant supply of food. Although they continue to be hunted in some parts of the world, Whale Sharks are currently listed as a vulnerable species.

The extremely cute Dibbler is also threatened and listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Dibblers were presumed extinct until 1967 when a pair was discovered near Albany. Since then, several other populations have been discovered along the southern coast of Western Australia and on islands. These adorable animals are nocturnal and feed mostly insects and small vertebrates. They also climb trees for nectar.

The app holds detailed descriptions for over 800 West Australian birds, mammals, fishes, frogs, lizards, snakes, insects, spiders and marine invertebrates. This includes: 

• a crab that uses its disproportionately large claw to impress females in such a way it appears to be playing the fiddle;
• a toad that has adapted to harsh conditions of arid areas by wrapping itself in a cocoon during dry periods;
• and a spider that has orange legs, a yellow and white patterned body and six large spines on the abdomen.

Australian wildlife is full of surprises!

Discover or rediscover all these surprising, curious, dangerous and cute Western Australian animals in our free Field Guide to WA fauna app. The app is available both on Apple and Android devices and is optimised for both tablet and phone sized screens.

We hope you have a great time discovering our exceptional Western Australian fauna…