Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common questions about the Species Guide — covering conservation status, species origins, and identification.. Select a category from the panel on the left to jump straight to the relevant questions.
Red List Conservation Status
The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria are intended to be an easily and widely understood system for classifying species at high risk of global extinction. It divides species into nine categories: Not Evaluated, Data Deficient, Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the Wild and Extinct.
A taxon is Least Concern when it has been evaluated against the criteria and does not qualify for Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable or Near Threatened. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category
A taxon is Near Threatened when it has been evaluated against the criteria but does not qualify for Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable now, but is close to qualifying for or is likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future.
A taxon is Vulnerable when the best available evidence indicates that it meets any of the criteria A to E for Vulnerable (see Section V), and it is therefore considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.
A taxon is Endangered when the best available evidence indicates that it meets any of the criteria A to E for Endangered , and it is therefore considered to be facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild.
A taxon is Critically Endangered when the best available evidence indicates that it meets any of the criteria A to E for Critically Endangered, and it is therefore considered to be facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
A taxon is Extinct in the Wild when it is known only to survive in cultivation, in captivity or as a naturalized population (or populations) well outside the past range. A taxon is presumed Extinct in the Wild when exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times (diurnal, seasonal, annual), throughout its historic range have failed to record an individual. Surveys should be over a time frame appropriate to the taxon’s life cycle and life form.
A taxon is Extinct when there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual has died. A taxon is presumed Extinct when exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times (diurnal, seasonal, annual), throughout its historic range have failed to record an individual. Surveys should be over a time frame appropriate to the taxon’s life cycle and life form.
A taxon is Data Deficient when there is inadequate information to make a direct, or indirect, assessment of its risk of extinction based on its distribution and/or population status. A taxon in this category may be well studied, and its biology well known, but appropriate data on abundance and/or distribution are lacking. Data Deficient is therefore not a category of threat. Listing of taxa in this category indicates that more information is required and acknowledges the possibility that future research will show that threatened classification is appropriate. It is important to make positive use of whatever data are available. In many cases great care should be exercised in choosing between DD and a threatened status. If the range of a taxon is suspected to be relatively circumscribed, and a considerable period of time has elapsed since the last record of the taxon, threatened status may well be justified.
A taxon is Not Evaluated when it has not yet been evaluated against the criteria.
Species Origins
How the species are indexed in terms of their "Origin" basically where the species originated from in terms of how that relates to Tasmania and or Australia i.e. if the species was first discovered in Tasmania and known only from Tasmania then this species would be endemic to Tasmania as it does not occur naturally elsewhere
A species is considered "endemic" when it is native to an area and not found elsewhere
i.e. if the species was first discovered in Tasmania and known only from Tasmania then this species would be endemic to Tasmania as it does not occur naturally elsewhere.
The term endemic can be applied to a specific location such as Parvulastra vivipara (Tasmanian Live-bearing Seastar) this is endemic to Tasmania, but can be further refined down to endemic to South Eastern Tasmania or expanded up to Australia as it is endemic only to Australia as a country so the term can be applied with some scope as long as it is referenced to a locality to give it some point of refence.
Species Identification
Part of this site includes species identification guides to help you understand how to identify species. This is often a complex process and takes time to build the details and associated files such as images or video every effort is being made to provide this detail and help users to identify the species found around Tasmania
Building all of the information and ensuring this is valid along with any video or images to help takes a lot of time I do this as I get time and by myself, unfortunately I cannot give any certainty around when and if I can add identification details to a species I intend to as many as I can but please allow me time to do this.
You are always welcome to help by sending any details or images to me via the details on the contact page
Yes,
The identification details and information I use is based on the Share and share alike license this allows for it's reuse as long as that license is maintained it is good practice to credit the source in particular if you use any of the video or images provided.
This license allows you to use this without having to contact me but you are more than welcome to drop me a message and share the details of where and how you intend to reuse this.
