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Australia launches new survey to search for new wildlife species
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Australia's government has launched a new survey to find out more about the country's unique wildlife. The program will see scientists camping out in the bush in the hope of rediscovering forgotten species, and finding new ones.
Peter Garrett, Australia's Environment Minister, launched the nation's new "Bush Blitz" program.
The star of the show was a rarely-seen species of lizard - the Swain's Leaf Tail gecko.
This gecko was one of the first finds in the New England National Park in northern New South Wales.
Peter Garrett, Australia's Environment Minister, said, "Look I think it is surprising for us to see that there are still pretty big opportunities in terms of identifying new species. We've got 400 now already - previously unreported, unrecorded, undiscovered species - how incredible.
Australia is home to more than 560-thousand species.
However, less than a quarter have been properly recorded, and less than half of the huge continent has been surveyed.
Mitzy Pepper from Australian National University, said, "Bush Blitz is going to go into areas that haven't been surveyed before, or have only been very poorly surveyed. So we really need to get a stronger idea on the sorts of species that we have in these areas, particularly if they're narrow range species, if they're only found in very small areas, they're the things particularly that we really need to concentrate on."
Over the next three years, scientists will survey 300 properties in a bid to set up one of the most comprehensive databases of native species.
By understanding the habitat and ecosystems, they also hope to establish what threats lie ahead.
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