SOLANDERIAN Hedley 1904

Hedley (1904) described the Solanderian as being “the Queensland coast from Moreton Bay to Torres Strait” (Hedley 1904: 880), an area that was later termed Queensland by Schilder & Schilder (1939) based on Cypraeidae (cowries) distributions. Hedley’s term Solanderian is senior to the term Queensland, but the subregions proposed by the Schilder’s are significant: subregion “Queensland S” extending from Hervey Bay down to the Macleay River in New South Wales is roughly equivalent to the McPherson-Mcleay overlap zone. A revision by Phillips (2007) gives a latitudinal limit to the Solanderian, which is incorporated into the diagnosis.

Originally proposed by Whitley as “the coastal districts of Queensland, which possess a marine fauna quite distinct from that of the Great Barrier Reef” (Whitley 1932: 166), the Banksian sub-region was later revised by Straughan as a province [...] which may be continuous with the Damperian, embracing the mainland coast and islands between 10°S and 25°S” (Straughan 1967: 254). Iredale (1937) used the Banksian in his ‘Faunal areas and regions of Australia’ map, but did not describe it in the text, while Kott (1952: 325) ignored it entirely finding “no distinction from the known ascidian distribution between Banksian and Solanderian faunas”.