Carnarvon xeric shrublands

Location and description

The ecoregion covers an area of from the bounded by the Indian Ocean to the west from the Peron Peninsula in Shark Bay up to the North West Cape. The Pilbara shrublands lie to the northeast, the Western Australian mulga shrublands to the east, and the Southwest Australia savanna to the south. The region is named for the coastal town of Carnarvon and includes a number of coastal towns and tourist resorts.
The terrain is generally low, and the vegetation varies with the underlying geology, which consists mostly of recent alluvial, aeolian, and marine sediments over cretaceous strata. This is a very dry region with less than of rainfall per year.
The ecoregion covers the on-shore portion of the Carnarvon Basin, a physiographic province of the larger West Australian Shield division.

The Carnarvon bioregion has two sub-regions:

Low samphire and saltbush shrublands cover the saline alluvial plains, snakewood scrublands cover the clay flats, Bowgada low woodland covers sandy ridges and plains, red sand dune fields are interspersed or overlain with tree to shrub steppe over hummock grasslands, and Acacia startii/A. bivenosa shrublands cover limestone outcrops in the north. Other trees in the area include limestone wattle with an undergrowth of dead finish. The sheltered embayments and extensive tidal flats along the coast support mangroves.

Wildlife of the area includes birds such as the western grasswren and the red-tailed black cockatoo. This is also the area where it is possible that there may be a surviving population of the lesser stick-nest rat which is thought to be extinct.