Sources & photo credits

About this guide

A growing, species-first field guide to the wildlife of Australia: mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. This edition lists about 2,700 species, about 1,900 of them with photographs. Species descriptions are still being written.

How the species list was built

Species come from open reference lists whose ranges include Australia (the Mammal Diversity Database, the IOC World Bird List and the Reptile Database), plus species with at least 50 GBIF occurrence records in Australia (retrieved September 2026). Species with only 5 to 49 records, which can be vagrants, escapes or misidentifications, are held back until they have been checked by hand. Domestic animals are left out and duplicate entries under old and new scientific names have been merged. Common names follow the same lists, then the other Wildlife of Everywhere guides, then Wikipedia; many of Australia's frogs, skinks and small mammals have no English name yet, so their scientific name is shown.

Why there is no conservation status

This guide shows only national Red List categories, never global IUCN ones. Australia's national assessments are made under the EPBC Act and by each state and territory, and are not yet included in a reusable open form, so no status label is shown yet. All native wildlife is protected by law in every state and territory.

Reference sources

• Mammal Diversity Database: mammal names and ranges (CC BY 4.0)
• IOC World Bird List: bird names and taxonomy
• The Reptile Database: reptile taxonomy and distribution (via Catalogue of Life, CC BY 4.0)
• GBIF — Australia: occurrence records used to check the lists

Planning a visit

Some national parks and Aboriginal lands need permits or have access rules, and cyclones, floods and bushfires close roads and trails; check park alerts before you travel. Check with the reserve or your operator before you travel rather than relying on the details here.

Wildlife sightings are never guaranteed. The species listed for each place are what is realistically possible there, not what you should expect on a given day.

Your plans and sightings

Your trip plan and sightings are saved in this browser, on this device only. We never see them. Clearing your browser data will clear them too, so download the PDF if you want a copy to keep. Email buttons open a draft in your mail app; nothing is sent until you send it.

Species descriptions

Species accounts are our own paraphrased summaries of published, openly accessible sources, mainly Wikipedia species accounts, and for snakes and other reptiles also The Reptile Database (reptile-database.reptarium.cz), with national checklists and Red Lists where cited. Each account names its source in brackets. Some are general to the species and are not specific to this country; a short entry means the sources said little, not that we left something out. We use no IUCN Red List data.

Photo credits

Photographs come from iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA licences, or were taken by the Wildlife of Everywhere team. Each one keeps its photographer's name, licence and a link to the original.

Photographs are chosen to show the species clearly, so many were taken elsewhere in its range rather than in Australia. Tap the i on any photograph to see who took it. The full list is below.

View all photo credits