Side note: I couldn't find any reference to recently extinct reptiles in Australia ... have any gone out of fashion at all?
Hi Chris,
The only Australian reptile that is feared extinct (though not officially listed as such) is the Retro slider (
Lerista allanae). It's never been photographed alive.
There are others reptilian rarities, such as
Ramphotyphlops longissimus - a blind snake known only from a single specimen unearthed during a drilling operation on Barrow Island. It came from a fair depth, and is (as far as I'm aware) the deepest-dwelling Australian reptile known. Of course, due to the extreme logistical difficulties of sampling such depths, there may be many more unknown. There are a number of other blind snake species that have been described from single specimens.
The pink snake (
Cryptophis incredibilis) is known only from in Prince of Wales Island in the southern Torres Strait. I don't have personal experience with them, but I believe they're hard to find and may be genuinely rare.
As Jonno has said, there are a number of large, charismatic species that are known from few specimens, but I'll be more cautious and say that this might be due to the remote locations they inhabit rather than a genuine rarity of the species.
Christmas Island (an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean) has two endemics (a gecko and a blind snake) that haven't been located in a number of recent fauna surveys. The National Parks authority has commissioned a herpetofauna survey of the island (which should be happening soon), in part to try to determine the status of these two species.
And of course there were megafaunal reptiles such as megalania (giant goanna) and wonambi (giant python) that shared this continent with indigenous people for thousands of years, until they met with what was most likely an anthropogenic extinction.
Stewart
