March 9, 2021 at 6:00 am
When Isabel Hyman heads out in coming weeks to the wilds of northern New South Wales, she’s worried about what she
won’t find. Fifteen years ago, the malacologist or mollusk scientist with the Australian Museum made an incredible discovery among the limestone outcrops there: a tiny, 3-millimeter-long snail, with a ribbed, dark golden-brown shell, that was new to science.
Subsequently named after her husband, Hugh Palethorpe, Palethorpe’s pinwheel snail (
Rhophodon palethorpei) “is only known from a single location, at the Kunderang Brook limestone outcrops in Werrikimbe National Park,” she says. Now it may become known for a different, more devastating distinction: It is one of hundreds of species that experts fear have been pushed close to, or right over, the precipice of extinction by the wildfires that blazed across more than 10 million hectares of southeastern Australia in the summer of 2019–2020.
Vinnies Appeal gives Darwin families joy this Christmas after a year that left them with little
ThuThursday 10
Courtney Mellor with her kids Seeley Curtis, 9, Temperance Mellor-Holtam, 4, and Merida Holtam, 3.
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Courtney Mellor has four kids and had to give up her job in real estate to be a full-time mum, but it put her on the breadline.
Key points:
Migrants and international students have been isolated and without a support network in 2020
The ABC Vinnies appeal aims to help people get back on their feet and through tough times
She can balance her budget for most of the time, but Christmas is too much in a year in which Darwin s homeless drop-in centre has seen demand double.