Fauna of the Blue Mountains

Looking out from Sydney, across the sprawl of suburbia, the Blue Mountains rise in a blue-green haze from the Cumberland Plain. These mountains are home to many fascinating animals. Here we present a description of this diverse fauna.

The boundaries of the Blue Mountains are somewhat arbitrary. For our purposes, we define them as the eastern escarpment, Blaxlands Ridge and the Colo, Wolgan and Coxs Rivers. We list all mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs reliably reported from the region over the last 200 years and provide details of their local distribution and habitat, their relative abundance (on a scale of common, moderately common, uncommon or rare) and something of their habits and life histories.

The order of the species follows the standard reference books for each group. As a guide to identification, we give a brief description of each species of mammal, reptile and frog, emphasising the diagnostic features and indicating the average adult size. No descriptions are provided for birds since several excellent books of identification are readily available. 

The Blue Mountains region is still largely natural bushland and much of it is National Park. Nonetheless, there have been substantial changes to the environment and the fauna since European settlement. We have compiled an account of these changes from the historical record. However, early descriptions of the fauna are scanty and the full extent of change will probably never be known. Despite the Blue Mountains lying on the fringes of Australia's largest city, knowledge of their fauna remains incomplete.

We hope that this book will stimulate people to record their fauna observations. We would welcome any additional information passed on to us.