Biodiversity

The biodiversity on Lord Howe Island is extraordinary!

On this tiny island in the Tasman Sea there are found 240 species of native vascular plants, over 100 moss species; hundreds of thousands of breeding seabirds from fourteen different species; around three to four thousand species of invertebrates (animals without backbones), such as snails, spiders, beetles, stick insects and ants; in the Island streams there are interesting freshwater crustaceans such as a unique shrimp species and a tiny crab Halicarcinus lacustris that is also found in Eastern Australia, New Zealand and Norfolk Island.

Then there is the marine life in the surrounding ocean – the world’s most southerly coral reef, with a great diversity of other creatures living in and on the reef. There are over 500 fish species, around seventy echinoderm species (starfish, urchins and their cousins), hundreds of mollusc species (snails, slugs and bivalves) plus hundreds of other species such as crustaceans, worms, and a myriad of other creatures.