Cephalopodcast - The Ocean Podcast

via BoingBoing.net

Found out that September 7 is National Threatened Species Day in Australia. Australia is home to many unique critters, and one of the strangest was the Thylacine, or Tasmanian Wolf/Tiger. It was actually a marsupial, and the last known living one died in captivity on this day in 1936.

[The] National Threatened Species Day…concept was developed by the Threatened Species Network, a community based program of the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Commonwealth Government’s Natural Heritage Trust, as a way to showcase Australian threatened species. By focusing attention on the plight of many of our threatened animals and plants, Threatened Species Day aims to encourage greater community support and hands-on involvement in the prevention of further losses of Australia’s unique natural heritage.

Well, one of the extant Australian creatures that is currently under threat is Neoceratodus, the Australian Lungfish. According to PZ Myers, “[t]he Australian government is planning to dam the last rivers on which these spectacular vertebrates live, and that will be it for them. We’ll be left with nothing but bones and tissue samples and few relics in aquaria.” Myers lists several ways folks can act to help save this species. You can also sign the petition.

• thePetitionsite.com - A Very Special Fish – Australian Lungfish under Threat
• The Thylacine Museum - films