The Amphibia of Tasmania

Abstract

Except for Antarctica and Tierra del Fuego (the latter extending to 55 {\textdegree}00{\textasciiacutex}S), Tasmania (reaching to 43 {\textdegree}40{\textasciiacutex}S) is the southernmost continental land mass in the Southern Hemisphere. New Zealand, although of relatively large area (268,676 km2), and extending to 47 {\textdegree}00{\textasciiacutex}S, has an impoverished, unbalanced and distinctly insular vertebrate fauna, together with a few ancient relictual species (Darlington, 1957, 1965). Bass Strait, which presently isolates Tasmania from the adjacent Australian mainland, has acted as a land bridge during the lower sea levels of Pleistocene glaciations (Littlejohn, 1967). Thus there has been opportunity for repeated migrations and subsequent differentiation of isolated populations (Littlejohn, 1967). The problems of area and taxonomic diversity on islands are now receiving renewed attention from evolutionary biogeographers (e.g. Macarthur & Wilson, 1967), so that a precise analysis of the distribution and taxonomic composition of one group of vertebrates on a large continental island may be of general interest.