Elected representatives in government are in charge of the policy and funding that can make or break saving threatened species. Their decisions and actions matter.

Franklin has or used to have 23 threatened animals within its boundaries. One of them is me, the Derwent River Seastar.

We took care to attach appropriate images that are as close to representative of each species as our resources and the availability of images allowed. However, we could not ensure perfect accuracy in every case. Some images show species that share the same genus but not at the species or subspecies level.

Derwent River Seastar

Marginaster littoralis

Status: Critically Endangered

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) lists threatened species under six categories:
Extinct, Extinct in the wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Conservation dependent. Read more about these categories

Marginaster littoralis is found across 2 electorates.

The Derwent River Seastar is a small seastar up to 17 mm across. The species usually has five arms and is a rounded pentagonal shape. It is bluish-greenish-brown on the upper surface, bordered by off-white around the outer edge. The under parts are off-white while the epidermis of the upper surface exhibits brown pigmentation around the base of the spinelets.¹

Explore more about this species on the Atlas of Living Australia

Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation