<p>vii) contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance</p><p>The Wet Tropics exhibit exceptional natural beauty, with superlative scenic features highlighted by extensive sweeping forest vistas, wild rivers, waterfalls, rugged gorges and coastal scenery. This is particularly apparent between the Daintree River and Cedar Bay, where exceptional coastal scenery combines tropical rainforest and white sandy beaches with fringing offshore coral reefs. The winding channels of the Hinchinbrook Channel contain the most extensive mangroves in the region, providing a rich visual mosaic of rainforest and mangroves, and a terrestrial continuum with the Great Barrier Reef. The exceptional natural beauty and superlative scenic features of the Wet Tropics provide some of the most powerful opportunities by which the Area can be presented to visitors. It is also this beauty that inspires and fulfils the spirits of the regional community; one of the most significant functions the Area plays in the life of the community.</p> <p>viii) be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features</p><p>The Wet Tropics contains one of the most complete and diverse living records of the major stages in the evolution of land plants, from the very first pteridophytes more than 200 million years ago to the evolution of seed-producing plants including the cone-bearing cycads and southern conifers (gymnosperms), followed by the flowering plants (angiosperms). As the Wet Tropics is the largest part of the entire Australasian region where rainforests have persisted continuously since Gondwanan times, its living flora, with the highest concentration of primitive, archaic and relict taxa known, is the closest modern-day counterpart for Gondwanan forests. In addition, all of Australia's unique marsupials and most of its other animals originated in rainforest ecosystems, and the Wet Tropics still contains many of their closest surviving members. This makes it one of the most important living records of the history of marsupials as well as of songbirds.</p> <p>ix) be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals</p><p>The Wet Tropics provides outstanding examples of significant ongoing ecological processes and biological evolution. As a centre of endemism for the region (second only to New Caledonia in the number of endemic genera per unit area), the Wet Tropics provides fundamental insights into evolutionary patterns both in isolation from and in interaction with other rainforests. The Area contains the highest concentrations of species of ancient lineages of flowering plants in the world. Its tall, open forests on the drier western margins of the rainforest are also significant as part of an evolutionary continuum of rainforest and sclerophyll forests. Eucalypts, that now dominate the Australian landscape, are considered to have evolved from such rainforest stock and radiated into drier environments from the margins of closed forests. The area supports an exceptionally high level of diversity of both flora and fauna, with over 4,200 vascular plant species of which 576 species (from 48 genera) are endemic, including one endemic family, the Austrobaileyaceae, which is found nowhere else on earth. Vertebrate diversity and endemism is also outstanding: The Wet Tropics is home to approximately 669 species of vertebrate animals, half of which are birds. There are 108 mammal species including 11 endemic species and two monotypic endemic genera. In terms of avifauna, there are 336 bird species, of which 12 species are endemic. For reptiles, there are 163 species of which 21 species are endemic, including three monotypic endemic genera. The diversity of amphibians includes 62 species of which 21 are endemic. </p> <p>x) to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of Outstanding Universal Value from the point of view of science or conservation</p><p>The Wet Tropics holds a largely intact flora and fauna with hundreds of endemic species restricted to the property, of which many are classified as threatened. The majority of plant species have restricted distributions, and many monotypic plant genera and several species of marsupials, frogs and reptiles have very restricted distributions either as isolated or disjunct populations, reflecting the refugial nature of the rainforests found in several locations. The diversity of the plant communities and animal habitats of the Wet Tropics is recognised as being the most floristically and structurally diverse in Australia and is also outstanding on a global scale. Among many emblematic species occurring in the property is the flightless Australian cassowary, one of the largest birds in the world. In an Australian context, the Wet Tropics covers less than 0.2% of Australia yet contains 30% of the marsupial species, 58% of bat species, 25% of rodent species, 50% of bird species, 29% of frog species, 23% of reptile species, 60% of butterfly species, 41% freshwater fishes, 65% of fern species, 21% of cycad species, 37% of conifer species, 30% of orchid species and over 22% of Australias vascular plant species. It is therefore of great scientific interest and of fundamental importance to conservation. Although the Wet Tropics is predominantly wet tropical rainforest, it is fringed and in a few places dissected by sclerophyll forests, woodlands, swamps and mangrove forests, adding to its diversity. </p>