Australian Creepers: Climacteridae

Australian treecreepers are distributed throughout Australia, except in the sandy and stony deserts, or grasslands. One of the eight species, the Papuan treecreeper, is native to New Guinea, where it is found in some of the mountains. However they are unexplainably absent from an area of approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) in central New Guinea. The island of Tasmania, off the southeastern coast of Australia, has no treecreepers despite the fact that it has a natural environment suitable to the birds—rainforests, eucalyptus forests, and woodlands. The explanation that has been suggested for this is that Tasmania did not have the extensive forest before it became isolated from the mainland, and treecreepers are poor fliers, so have not colonized Tasmania since then.