Extinct: Artistic Impressions of Our Lost Wildlife

By Benjamin Gray

Australia is home to an incredible diversity of native animals. While Australian animals are among the most unique in the world, they are also among the most endangered, with hundreds currently on the brink of extinction. We must act quickly if we are to save these species, as once gone, they are gone forever.

Extinct is a collection of artworks from established and emerging Australian fine artists, each depicting an Australian animal that has already, for various reasons, tumbled over the edge into extinction. Extinct laments their loss, but also celebrates their former existence, diversity and significance. The stunning artworks are accompanied by stories of each animal, highlighting the importance of what we have lost, so that we appreciate what we have not lost yet.

Extinct features artworks from Sue Anderson, Brook Garru Andrew, Andrew Baines, Elizabeth Banfield, Sally Bourke, Jacob Boylan, Nadine Christensen, Simon Collins, Lottie Consalvo, Henry Curchod, Sarah Faulkner, Dianne Fogwell, David Frazer, Martin George, Bruce Goold, Eliza Gosse, Simone Griffin, Johanna Hildebrandt, Miles Howard-Wilks, Nick Howson, Brendan Huntley, Ben Jones, Alex Latham, Rosemary Lee, Amanda Marburg, Chris Mason, Terry Matassoni, Rick Matear, Eden Menta, Reg Mombassa, Tom O'Hern, Bernard Ollis, Emma Phillips, Nick Pont, Geoffrey Ricardo, Sally Robinson, Anthony Romagnano, Gwen Scott, Marina Strocchi, Jenny Watson and Allie Webb.

Winner, 2022 Victorian Community History Awards: History Interpretation Award
Certificate of Commendation, The Royal Zoological Society of NSW 2022 Whitley Awards: Illustrated Zoology

• Language: English
• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Release date: Oct 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781486313730

Benjamin Gray

Benjamin Gray is an ecologist and historian whose work aims to explore the ethical and emotional significance of extinction, interactions between human and non-human animals in modern society, and the serious social, economic and environmental consequences of global biodiversity loss. He is a self-taught artist and keen follower of the Arts in Australia and internationally.

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title

© (text) Benjamin Gray 2021

© (illustrations) individual artists 2021

All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, duplicating or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Contact CSIRO Publishing for all permission requests.

The author and illustrators assert their moral rights, including the right to be identified as a creator.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 9781486313716 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781486313723 (epdf)

ISBN: 9781486313730 (epub)

How to cite:

Gray B (2021) Extinct: Artistic Impressions of Our Lost Wildlife.

CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.

Published by:

CSIRO Publishing

Locked Bag 10

Clayton South VIC 3169

Australia

Telephone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Website: www.publish.csiro.au

Front cover: Eungella Gastric-Brooding Frog by Simon Collins

Back cover: (left) Summer’s gone too long (Thylacine) by Henry Curchod,

(right) Count Gallinule (Lord Howe Gallinule) by Bruce Goold

Edited by Adrienne de Kretser, Righting Writing

Cover, text design and typeset by Cath Pirret Design

Printed in China by Leo Paper Products Ltd

CSIRO Publishing publishes and distributes scientific, technical and health science books, magazines and journals from Australia to a worldwide audience and conducts these activities autonomously from the research activities of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of, and should not be attributed to, the publisher or CSIRO. The copyright owner shall not be liable for technical or other errors or omissions contained herein. The reader/user accepts all risks and responsibility for losses, damages, costs and other consequences resulting directly or indirectly from using this information.

Acknowledgement

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands that we live and work on across Australia and pays its respect to Elders past and present. CSIRO recognises that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have made and will continue to make extraordinary contributions to all aspects of Australian life including culture, economy and science. CSIRO is committed to reconciliation and demonstrating respect for Indigenous knowledge and science. The use of Western science in this publication should not be interpreted as diminishing the knowledge of plants, animals and environment from Indigenous ecological knowledge systems.

The paper this book is printed on is in accordance with the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council® and other controlled material. The FSC® promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.

Jun21_01

FOREWORD

Bilingara (care) is a duty that the animal and natural worlds require from humans, more so today than ever before. Balugan (animals), dirranbirang (clouds), yaway (stones) and how we are in their worlds is an intuition that visits us in dreams when we sleep, coming to life when we finally breathe air that is not heavy with fumes from highways or deep city life. Dominant lifestyles take humans away from the bilingara of the Earth. It can be difficult to fathom rhythms like the symbiotic relationships between tiny insects, possums, frogs and other animals with trees, which assist in the vitality of river systems and supporting life. Often their bodies are invisible to us, crammed as they are between cleared or mined lands.

Hopping into a car to ‘go bush’ is about getting out of the city and finding places to heal and feel free, but this landscape of freedom is increasingly manipulated and threatened by extraordinary forces of change – unfortunately through our own ignorance. We cannot always buy plants from the local superstore to replace what is lost. We often overlook the importance of biodiversity, which continues to be devastated through unsustainable farming, fishing and mining, and turn a blind eye to our reliance on plastics. Animals and plants are struggling to survive, or have disappeared entirely.

To my knowledge, there is no Wiradjuri word for extinction. Today, extinction is a reality, as is the loss of wet and dry lands. At the current rate of change, our worlds are starting to resemble Hollywood films and cartoons that show a dystopian future where humans flee the Earth. Conservation, caring and actual engagement with nature is the pathway to protect not only animals and river systems but also happiness.

Think about the platypus. They have been disappearing throughout Australian water systems since colonial times when they were hunted for their skins and collected as museum specimens. In the last 30 years, their population has depleted a further 22 per cent due to habitat loss, which is increasing under the effects of climate change. Are we ready for the platypus to be extinct? Are we prepared?

The book you now hold in your hands, Extinct, is testament to how science and art can work together to inform and inspire, empowering a commitment to conservation. Through art we imagine both dystopian and utopian futures – informed by the science of climate change and the realities of extinction. The artworks in this book remember those Australian animals we have lost and could still lose. The artists have created visions of these special creatures and Benjamin Gray’s words provide in-depth descriptions of each animal and the devastating effects of colonisation, including land clearing and urban development, that have led to their extinction.

Science also provides possibilities for a healthy future. These possibilities are already known within First Nations epistemologies. It is about repairing human connections to each other in order to mindyarra (repair) the worlds of balugan, dirranbirang and yaway; it is about taking actions to empower these connections.

Yindyamarra,

Brook Garru Andrew

Bilingara, balugan, dirranbirang, yaway, mindyarra and yindyamarra are Wiradjuri words, from the Aboriginal nation in western New South Wales, and the matrilineal kinship group of the artist Brook Garru Andrew.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

BIG-EARED HOPPING MOUSE

Notomys macrotis

BLUE-GREY MOUSE

Pseudomys glaucus

BRAMBLE CAY MELOMYS

Melomys rubicola

BROAD-CHEEKED HOPPING MOUSE

Notomys robustus

BROAD-FACED POTOROO

Potorous platyops

CAPRICORN RABBIT-RAT

Conilurus capricornensis

CHRISTMAS ISLAND PIPISTRELLE

Pipistrellus murrayi

CRESCENT NAILTAIL WALLABY

Onychogalea lunata

DARLING DOWNS HOPPING MOUSE

Notomys mordax

DESERT BANDICOOT

Perameles eremiana

DESERT BETTONG

Bettongia anhydra

DESERT RAT-KANGAROO

Caloprymnus campestris

DUSKY FLYING FOX

Pteropus brunneus

EASTERN HARE-WALLABY

Lagorchestes leporides

Eungella Gastric-Brooding FROG

Rheobatrachus vitellinus

GOULD’S MOUSE

Pseudomys gouldii

KANGAROO ISLAND EMU

Dromaius baudinianus

KING ISLAND EMU

Dromaius ater

LAKE MACKAY HARE-WALLABY

Lagorchestes asomatus

LAKE PEDDER EARTHWORM

Hypolimnus pedderensis

LESSER BILBY

Macrotis leucura (syn. Peragale minor)

LESSER STICK-NEST RAT

Leporillus apicalis

LONG-TAILED HOPPING MOUSE

Notomys longicaudatus

LORD HOWE FLAX SNAIL

Placostylus cuniculinsulae

(syn. Placostylus bivaricosus cuniculinsulae)

LORD HOWE GERYGONE

Gerygone insularis

MOUNT GLORIOUS DAY FROG

Taudactylus diurnus

NULLARBOR DWARF BETTONG

Bettongia pusilla

PARADISE PARROT

Psephotellus pulcherrimus

PIG-FOOTED BANDICOOT

Chaeropus ecaudatus

ROBUST WHITE-EYE

Zosterops strenuus

SHARP SNOUTED DAY FROG

Taudactylus acutirostris

SHORT-TAILED HOPPING MOUSE

Notomys amplus

SOUTHERN GASTRIC-BROODING FROG

Rheobatrachus silus

TASMAN STARLING

Aplonis fusca

THYLACINE

Thylacinus cynocephalus

TOOLACHE WALLABY

Macropus greyi

TORNELASMIAS CAPRICORNI

WHITE GALLINULE

Porphyrio albus

WHITE-FOOTED RABBIT-RAT

Conilurus albipes

A STORY OF HOPE: THE MOUNTAIN PYGMY-POSSUM AND THE BOGONG MOTH

Burramys parvus and Agrotis infusa

Artist biographies

References

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, a resounding, overwhelming thank-you to all of the artists.

Another huge thanks to those without whom this book wouldn’t exist: to my parents Mark and Jan, to Emma, to Dr Susie Ho and Dr Rohan Clarke at Monash University, and to Briana Melideo, Tracey Kudis and Mark Hamilton at CSIRO Publishing. Further thanks to Dr Penny Olsen, Dr Bob Wong, Dr Michael Archer, Sim Luttin and the team at Arts Project Australia, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Hugo Michell Gallery, Sutton Gallery, and John and Linsay Knight of Pitt St Poetry.

Each tongue, it has been wisely said, speaks galaxies.

And when a language dies, a world—and all that has

No other being elsewhere—fails; a silence falls

Where there was song, where there was something known no other

Lyric grasps.

Every species is a world

Of sound, a solid form of silence said. A body

Of thought. And with each dialect drowned, each lexicon

Beached, the world that is a universe of all

These knowing realms knows less, the living world grows less

Alive.

And we, who cannot find a patch of ground

We do not need to claim, a wildness we do not need

To tame, fall deeper alone the thicker we crowd the biomes,

The thinner we shave the ways there are of Being on this

Earth.

— Excerpt of Mark Tredinnick’s poem ‘Litany: An Elegy’

from Walking Underwater (Pitt Street, 2020)

Chris O’Doherty (Reg Mombassa)

Jobs and Growth

Charcoal on paper

16 × 23 cm

INTRODUCTION

The continent of Australia is home to an incredible diversity of native animals, their traits specifically adapted to match a variety of unique environmental pressures. Hot deserts or cool creeks, red dirt or white sand, snowy mountains or grassy plains; these species have adapted to survive the distinct, and often harsh, landscapes that define the continent. Having developed largely in isolation, on a continent which disconnected from modern-day continental landmasses – with the exception of Antarctica – around 96 million years ago, the idiosyncrasies of Australian animals are remarkably unique. This cannot be better demonstrated than by the inimitable Platypus. When first informed of the Platypus’ existence, European scientists assumed they were the butt of some cross-continental joke. It was not until they witnessed a live specimen, swimming before their eyes, that they could believe such a bizarre animal existed. It has fur and lactates like a mammal, it has a bill and webbed feet like a bird, it lays eggs and produces venom like a reptile, and it finds prey using electroreception like a shark. It is one of two living monotremes (the other is the equally endearing Echidna) and is unlike any other animal on Earth.

The Platypus’ existence exemplifies the individuality of this continent’s fauna. Gastric-brooding frogs, dinosaur-like flightless birds, frilled-neck or blue-tongued lizards and hopping marsupials with pouches for their young … There are no overseas counterparts for many of these unique species. Their existence is of international significance, yet their continued survival is largely dependent on those who share their ancient continent – the Australian people. Surely the people lucky enough to co-exist alongside these fascinating animals are obliged to live in a way that prevents their extinction? Just as Africans must protect the mighty Lion or elegant Giraffe, Australians must protect the Kangaroo, Emu, Wombat, Koala, Kookaburra, Goanna, Funnel-Web Spider, Blue-Ringed Octopus, Red-Bellied Black Snake and more. Australia’s animals are iconic and often used as cultural signifiers – from Olympic mascots to the national currency, their cultural significance within Australia cannot be understated. And yet, these animals are facing unprecedented pressures that threaten their existence into the future.

The artistic culture of this continent is as unique and