Shark Bay

Shark Bay is located approximately the most western narrowing of the coast of Australia and covers 23,000 km 2.

The place represents a meeting lessening of three major climatic regions and forms a alter-more than along in the midst of two major groups of reforest species  the South West and Eremaean provinces.

The number of species that enter upon the subside of their range is a major feature of the region's flora. Twenty-five per cent (283 species) of the places vascular natural world are at the limits of their range in Shark Bay. Many vegetation dealings and reforest species are found unaided in the areas amid every second biological zones.

The place south of Freycinet Estuary contains the unique type of vegetation known as tree heath. There are as well as at least 51 species endemic to the region and others that are considered new to science.

The Shark Bay region is an area of major zoological importance, primarily due to habitats upon peninsulas and islands brute single-handedly from the scuffle that has occurred elsewhere. Of the 26 species of endangered Australian mammals, five are found upon Bernier and Dorre Islands. These are the boodie or burrowing bettong, rufous hare wallaby, banded hare wallaby, the Shark Bay mouse and the western barred bandicoot.

The Shark Bay region has a proficiently-off avifauna, and taking into consideration more 230 species or 35 per cent of Australia's bird species have been recorded. A number of natural world come their northern limit at Shark Bay including the regent parrot, western yellowish-brown robin, blue-breasted fairy wren and striated pardalote.

The region is noted for the diversity of its amphibians and reptiles, supporting on the order of 100 species. Again, many species are at the northern or southern limit of their range. The area is as well as significant for the variety of burrowing species, such as the sandhill frog, which apparently needs no surface water. Shark Bay is home to three endemic sand swimming skinks, and 10 of the 30 dragon lizard species found in Australia.

The 12 species of seagrass found in Shark Bay make it one of the most diverse seagrass assemblages in the world. Seagrass covers future than 4,000 square kilometres of the recess, and the 1,030 square kilometres Wooramel Seagrass Bank is the largest structure of its type in the world.

Seagrass has contributed significantly to the expansion of Shark Bay. It has modified the monster, chemical and biological character as adroitly as the geology and has led to the shape on of major marine features such as Faure Sill. Faure Island is an emergent share of the Faure Sill, a sandbar overlaying sandstone that crosses the eastern gulf of Shark Bay from Peron Peninsula to the mainland. Interestingly, it is this sandbar that has created the immense areas of sandy hypersaline shallows that sticking together the dexterously-known Stromatolites of Shark Bay.

The barrier banks allied taking into account the layer of seagrass on top of the last 5,000 years  and the low rainfall, high evaporation and low tidal flushing  have produced the hypersaline Hamelin Pool and Lharidon Bight. This hypersaline condition is conducive to the photo album of cyanobacteria which lie in wait and bind sediment to manufacture a variety of mats and structures including Stromatolites.

Stromatolites represent the oldest form of liveliness upon earth. They are representative of simulation-forms which lived some 3,500 million years ago. Hamelin Pool contains the most diverse and abundant examples of Stromatolite forms in the world.

Shark Bay is famous for its marine fauna. The population of roughly 10,000 dugong, for example, is one of the largest in the world, and dolphins abound, particularly at Monkey Mia.

Humpback whales use the Bay as a staging buildup together in their migration along the coast. This species was edited by following in poor health-treatment from an estimated population of 20,000 to as regards 800 whales in 1962. The population is recovering and is now estimated at occurring to 3,000.

Green and loggerhead turtles are found in Shark Bay muggy their southern limits, subsequent to loggerhead turtles nesting upon the beaches of Dirk Hartog Island and Peron Peninsula. Dirk Hartog Island is the most important nesting site for loggerhead turtles in Western Australia.

Shark Bay is in addition to an important nursery auditorium for larval stages of crustaceans, fishes and medusae.

The Western Australian Government is liable for hours of hours of day-to-day admin of the Shark Bay World Heritage Area.