Daintree Rainforest - Wet Tropics Flora and Fauna

(Photo: Mike Trenerry)

About 3,000 plant species from 210 families are found in the Wet Tropics. Twelve out of the world's 19 families of primitive flowering plants grow here and within these families, there are at least 50 species found only in the Wet Tropics. While many of the plants in the rainforest have been around for millions of years, learn about ferns that have been around for much longer than that. Learn how the Area provides an unparalleled living record of the ecological and evolutionary processes that shaped the flora and fauna of Australia over the past 415 million years.

Learn more about the mammals, reptiles, freshwater fish, birds and frogs of the World Heritage Area. This area is home to about a third of Australia's 315 mammal species - 13 of these species are found nowhere else in the world. They include unique green possums, ringtail possums, fierce marsupial cats, rare bats, tree-kangaroos, a rat-kangaroo, a melomys and an antechinus. There are many spectacular insects to see in Australia's Tropical Rainforests. Do you know what a peripatus is? Read on to find out about the invertebrates that inhabit these forests including, crustaceans, worms, beetles, ants, spiders, mites, scorpions, amblypygids, centipedes and millipedes, not to mention the snails and slugs. While the Wet Tropics region is home to a quarter of Australia's frogs and a little over a third of the country's freshwater fish, it is also home to nearly half of Australia's birds - that's more than 370 different species.

There are so many different things to see in our forests that many interesting but demure species go unnoticed. See some of the colourful forms of mushrooms and fungi that inhabit the rainforest floor. They play an important role but for most of their lives, they remain hidden inside rotting wood or in the soil - only making a cameo appearance when it is time to reproduce.

Information cortesy of the Wet Tropics Management Authority.