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Australia is a world leader in species extinction and declines, largely due to invasive species.

Our Work  |  Ending extinction | Photo by Lindy Lumsden

 

Extinct: Gravel-downs ctenotus

  • Common name: Gravel-downs ctenotus
  • Scientific name: Ctenotus serotinus
  • Formal national status: Extinct
  • Decade of extinction: 1980s
  • Expert assessments: 72% likelihood of extinction (Garnett et al. 2022) Primary threat: Cats

The gravel-downs ctenotus appeared to be a common lizard when it was last seen in south-western Queensland in 1984, but many searches since then have failed to find it. It was found on 2 pastoral properties in the Diamantina Lakes region, the first in 1981 in sandy country with spinifex, canegrass and Georgina gidgee trees, and 3 years later at a location about 40 kilometres away in a narrow zone between sandy dunes and adjacent stony soils.

One biologist who helped discover the species deemed it slower-moving than many ctenotus skinks, suggesting high vulnerability to cats, which feed heavily on small desert lizards and reach very high densities after plagues of native desert rats. In 1992 army sharpshooters shot 500 cats around a bilby colony on Davenport Downs Station, the property on which the lizard was last seen.

The gravel downs ctenotus may have been doomed by native rodents reaching plague numbers allowing cats to multiply. Photo: © David Knowles

The other site has become part of Diamantina National Park, where 8 searches between 1999 and 2017 failed to find it, including in locations both near the original sites and in a wider region.

The Threatened Species Scientific Committee determined that predation by cats, combined with habitat degradation from grazing and weed invasion, are the most plausible threats to the species, if it still survives. Grazing and fires could have increased the vulnerability of the lizards to cat predation. Experts have assessed it as most likely extinct (72% likelihood). 

While we can’t bring the tiny Christmas Island pipistrelle back, we can prevent future extinctions with urgent investment and action on invasive species.

Extinct

Australia has lost about 100 native plants and animals to extinction since colonisation, most of which were mainly due to invasive species. An estimated 27 of those extinctions occurred since the 1960s. 

Learn more about some of Australia’s lost animals:

Illustration from British Museum (Natural History)

Yallara (lesser bilby)

EXTINCT (1960s)
Photo: Richard Holdaway

White-chested white-eye

EXTINCT (2000s)
Photo: Martin Cohen

Mountain mist frog

EXTINCT (1990s)
Photo: Martin Cohen

Sharp-snouted day frog

EXTINCT (1990s)
Photo: David Staples (© Museums Victoria)

Desert bandicoot

EXTINCT (1970s)
Photo: NT government

Central hare-wallaby, kuluwarri

EXTINCT (1960s)
Photo: Hal Cogger

Southern day frog

EXTINCT (1970s)
Photo: Steve Wilson

Southern gastric brooding frog

EXTINCT (1980s)
Photo: Dr Hal Cogger

Northern gastric brooding frog

EXTINCT (1980s)
Photo: David Knowles

Gravel-downs ctenotus

EXTINCT (1980s)

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GONE: Australian animals extinct since the 1960s

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Meet the Australian animals at biggest risk from invasive species – and share their profiles to help raise awareness of what’s at stake

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Support our work to end invasive species-led extinctions

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Hear from us when it matters

Your support to protect critically endangered and vulnerable species from extinction is vital. Together, we can ensure governments prioritise action on invasive species and protect our wildlife and iconic places.

The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.

The Invasive Species Council acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and their connections to land and sea. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

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Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]


Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]