KIMBERLEY PLATEAU Cracraft 1991

Originally termed the Eremian (from Tate’s regionalisation), Spencer’s term Eyrean has been widely used with the zoological literature (Sloane 1915; Main et al. 1958). Since Spencer (1896), only one attempt has been made to rename these regions. Smith (1984) termed much of the Eyrean “Centralian” to regionalise land mollusc fauna. Smith (1984) ignores Spencer’s regionalisation completely, renaming all regions based on marine distributions that were extrapolated inland. This rather baffling regionalisation has, to our knowledge, not been followed within the malacological community, remaining as an historical curiosity. Other sub-regionalisations of the Eyrean Subregion include Pianka (1969), who based his lizard regions on abiotic factors and vegetation. While these are helpful for determining ecological zones, they largely follow geographical and vegetation regions as well as being termed as such (e.g., Mulga Scrub, Mulga Scrub Country, Nullabor Plain, Great Victoria Desert). These areas have been omitted from this classification.