The McIlwraith Range is a rugged, dissected

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns, Queensland, Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stret ...

, Australia. Part of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...

, the McIlwraith Range covers about and lies about east of the town of Coen, and north of

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

. The

Archer Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern ...

and Stewart Rivers rise in the range, with the Archer draining the range's western slopes into the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...

and the Stewart draining east into the

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...

. The range receives an annual rainfall of about .

History

Kaanju (also known as Kandju) is a language of Cape York. The Kaanju language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Cook Shire Council.

Environment

The McIlwraith Range has been protected since its gazettal as the Kulla (McIlwraith Range) National Park. It is also listed on Australia's

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heri ...

. It was named after Sir

Thomas McIlwraith Sir Thomas McIlwraith (17 May 1835 – 17 July 1900) was for many years the dominant figure of colonial politics in Queensland. He was Premier of Queensland from 1879 to 1883, again in 1888, and for a third time in 1893. In common with most po ...

(1835–1900), three time

Premier of Queensland The premier of Queensland is the head of government in the Australian state of Queensland. By convention the premier is the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The premier is appointed ...

1879–1883, 1888, and 1893. Most of the range is about , with a high point of just north-east of Coen. The major peaks are Mount Carter, Mount White, Mount Newberry, and Mount Walsh. The range is largely vegetated with a variety of

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

types, forming the southernmost limit of the ranges of many plants and animals characteristic of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. These include the

spotted cuscus The common spotted cuscus (''Spilocuscus maculatus''), also known as the white cuscus, is a cuscus, a marsupial that lives in the Cape York region of Australia, New Guinea, and nearby smaller islands. Names It is known as or in the Kalam lang ...

green tree python The green tree python (''Morelia viridis''), is a species of snake in the family Pythonidae. The species is native to New Guinea, some islands in Indonesia, and the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. First described by Hermann Schlegel in 1872, it ...

and

palm cockatoo The palm cockatoo (''Probosciger aterrimus''), also known as the goliath cockatoo or great black cockatoo, is a large, smoky-grey/black Psittaciformes, parrot of the cockatoo family native to New Guinea, the Aru Islands Regency, Aru Islands and ...

.KULLA (McIlwraith Range) National Park: Nature, culture and history
. Department of Environment and Resource Management. Retrieved on 20 October 2011. An endemic species is the

McIlwraith leaf-tailed gecko ''Orraya'' is a monotypic genus of lizard in the family Carphodactylidae. The genus contains the sole species ''Orraya occultus'', also known commonly as the McIlwraith leaf-tailed gecko or the long-necked northern leaf-tailed gecko. The species ...

(''Orraya occultus'').

Birds

The range is part of the McIlwraith and Iron Ranges

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA), identified as such by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because it is one of the few known sites for the

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

buff-breasted buttonquail. The IBA also supports an isolated population of southern cassowaries as well as populations of

lovely fairywren The lovely fairywren (''Malurus amabilis''), or lovely wren, is a species of bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is endemic to northeastern Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country c ...

s, silver-crowned friarbirds,

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

, yellow-spotted, white-streaked and

banded honeyeater The banded honeyeater (''Cissomela pectoralis'') is a species of honeyeater in the family Meliphagidae with a characteristic narrow black band across its white underparts. It is Endemism, endemic to tropical northern Australia. Taxonomy and sys ...

s, and white-browed robins.

History

Environment

Birds

References

Further reading