Christmas Island National Park
| Christmas Island National Park | |||
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| Location: | Christmas Island | ||
| Surface: | 85 km² | ||
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The Christmas Island National Park (English Christmas Island National Park ) is a national park on the to Australia belonging to Christmas Island , which is about 350 km south of Java and 2,600 km northwest of Perth in the Indian Ocean. With around 8,500 ha, it covers a considerable part of the island's area of around 13,500 ha and was placed under protection in 1980.
General
The national park is of great importance as a habitat for sea birds; But it also became known through the migration of the Christmas Island crabs , which migrate in large numbers almost simultaneously to spawn from the island forests to the sea, where they mate and lay their eggs.
nature
The nature protected by the national park has very different habitats: These range from the waters of the ocean with its sandy mud flats and coral reefs to beaches, sea cliffs and mangrove forests . On land, there are rainforests of various types, limestone cliffs and karst with caves and crevices and finally wetlands and areas where phosphate was previously mined.
Flora
So far, 411 plant species have been identified on the island, 18 of which are endemic to the island . About 230 species were introduced by humans during the 20th century. Of these, 80 species are now classified as harmful or threatening species.
Wildlife
Christmas Island is very isolated and has never been near any major land masses. The importance of the island for the animal species is correspondingly great.
Of the 23 breeding birds on the island, for example, the Christmas Boobook and White-fronted White-eye and subspecies of bands hawk (Christmas Island tapes hawk), the green wing dove and the white-bellied gannet (Sula leucogaster plotus) endemic.
Only five mammal species naturally occurred on the island, two of which became extinct shortly after the island was settled by Europeans. The Christmas Island shrew is also extremely endangered or has already died out. Even the Weihnachtsinsel- bat and Myotis bats -Fledermausart Pipistrellus murrayi registering sharp stock declines.
The occurrence of 21 land and freshwater crabs is also remarkable, of which the Christmas Island crab with its population of around 50 million, the palm thief and the blue land crab are the most striking.
Web links
- Information from the Australian National Park Administration
- Australian Government Information
- Information on bird life (PDF file; 2.20 MB)
- Information on the Christmas Island Crab (with PDF files on the migration and life cycle of Gecarcoidea natalis for download)