First Nations Use of Plant & Animal Adaptations

Observing what an organism does, and why

To use an organism's adaptation, you first have to understand that adaptation in detail, what the feature does for the organism and how it works.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples developed, over many thousands of years, detailed, place-based knowledge of the structural, physiological and behavioural adaptations of local plants and animals, and applied that knowledge to specific purposes such as food, medicine, tools, fibre and fishing. This knowledge is empirical (built from careful, repeated observation), tested across generations, and specific to each Country, because the species and seasons differ from place to place.

The logic is the same one you have studied: every adaptation exists because it helped the organism survive, a plant's toxin deters herbivores, a moth migrates to escape summer heat, a fish hides in cool deep water. Understanding why the organism evolved the feature is what makes it possible to use it. (Note: many specific preparation methods are held as cultural knowledge by particular communities; this lesson describes well-documented, widely shared examples only.)

Pause, copy the highlighted sentence into your book before moving on.

When a plant's defence chemical becomes a tool

We just established that using an adaptation requires understanding it. That raises a question: how is a plant's adaptation actually put to a purpose? This card answers it → mostly by repurposing the chemicals plants evolved as defences.

Many plants produce defensive chemicals, a physiological adaptation against herbivores, and these same chemicals can serve human purposes such as fishing, medicine or food preparation.

Case study 1: turning a plant defence into a fishing method. Plants of the genus Tephrosia, known in northern Australia as fish poison bushes, produce rotenone-like compounds as a chemical defence against herbivores. The compound interferes with cellular respiration, and fish are particularly sensitive to it because it crosses the gill directly. Aboriginal Peoples across northern Australia crushed the plant and released it into a still pool or a dammed section of creek, where the compound stunned the fish so they rose to the surface and could be gathered by hand (Isaacs, Bush Food, 1987; Low, Bush Medicine, 1990). Notice how much biology this method encodes: the toxin is a physiological defence adaptation, still water is chosen so the chemical is not diluted and carried away, and the dose used stuns rather than poisons the catch.

Case study 2: neutralising a defence to unlock a food. Cycads of the genus Macrozamia produce large, starch-rich seeds that are also strongly toxic, containing cycasin and macrozamin, glycosides that are a chemical defence against seed predators. Aboriginal Peoples across northern and eastern Australia processed these seeds into a safe, storable, high-carbohydrate food by prolonged leaching in running water, or by ageing and fermenting them, before grinding and cooking. Archaeological evidence for cycad processing has been recovered from Cheetup rock shelter in Western Australia and Cathedral Cave in Queensland (Beaton, Archaeology in Oceania, 1982). This is the sharper example of the two, because using the plant required understanding the adaptation precisely enough to defeat it: which part is toxic, what removes the toxin, and how long the treatment must run.

Plant defensive chemicals are a physiological adaptation against herbivores, and they were put to specific purposes: Tephrosia crushed into a still pool released a respiratory toxin that stunned fish for harvest, and Macrozamia cycad seeds were leached or fermented to remove cycasin and macrozamin, converting a toxic seed into a storable staple food. Each use depends on understanding the adaptation, what the chemical does, where it is concentrated and what removes it.

Pause, copy one example of a plant adaptation used for a purpose into your book.

Knowing an animal's behaviour to harvest it sustainably

We just used plant adaptations as tools. That raises a question: how is an animal's adaptation used for a purpose? This card answers it → mostly by reading an animal's behavioural adaptation to know when and where to find it.

Knowing an animal's behavioural adaptation, its migration, breeding time or daily movement, tells you exactly when and where it can be reliably and sustainably harvested.

Case study 3: Bogong moths in the Australian Alps. The Bogong moth (Agrotis infusa) migrates up to about a thousand kilometres each spring from breeding grounds on the inland plains of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria to the cool caves and rock crevices of the Australian Alps, where it aestivates in dense aggregations through the summer to escape lowland heat. Ngarigo, Walgalu, Djilamatang, Jaitmathang, Monero and Ngunnawal peoples travelled into the high country each summer to harvest the moths, which are exceptionally rich in fat and protein, and the harvest supported large intergroup gatherings (Flood, The Moth Hunters, 1980). The use rests entirely on the adaptation: the moths are worth the journey only because their aestivation concentrates enormous numbers in known, predictable places at a known time of year. The moth was listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2021 after a population collapse.

Case study 4: Gunditjmara eel aquaculture at Budj Bim. Short-finned eels (Anguilla australis) are catadromous: they grow in fresh water and migrate downstream and out to sea to spawn, moving in large numbers at predictable times. On Gunditjmara Country in south-western Victoria, people used that behaviour by engineering the landscape around it, cutting channels, weirs and holding ponds into the Budj Bim lava flow so that migrating eels were diverted, trapped and held alive until they were needed. Parts of the system have been dated to at least around 6,600 years ago (McNiven and colleagues, 2012), and the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019 for exactly this: one of the oldest and most extensive aquaculture systems known anywhere. The purpose here is not just to catch eels but to store them alive, which turns a seasonal migration into a year-round food supply.

Case study 5: reading the calendar the environment writes. Seasonal calendars record which natural signs indicate that a resource is ready. The Yolngu calendar of north-east Arnhem Land, recorded with the Bureau of Meteorology, divides the year into six seasons marked by the flowering of particular plants, changes in wind and rain, and the condition of particular animals, so that the flowering of one species signals when another is fat and worth harvesting. Several such calendars are published through the Bureau of Meteorology Indigenous Weather Knowledge project. The biology being used is the timing of a plant or animal life cycle, which is itself an adaptation to the local seasonal cycle.

Animal adaptations were used by reading behaviour. The Bogong moth summer migration to cool alpine caves, a behavioural adaptation to escape lowland heat, concentrated a fat-rich food in known places at a known time, which is what made the harvest worth the journey. The catadromous migration of short-finned eels let the Gunditjmara engineer channels, weirs and holding ponds at Budj Bim that trapped eels and stored them alive, turning a seasonal run into a year-round supply. In both cases the purpose depends on knowing the timing and route of the adaptation.

Add one animal example and the adaptation it relies on to your notes before the check below.

Each case study above names the People and the Country it belongs to, and cites a published source, because that is both respectful practice and checkable science. Do the same in your own answers.

• Flood, J. (1980). The Moth Hunters: Aboriginal prehistory of the Australian Alps. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Bogong moth harvesting in the high country.
• McNiven, I. J. and colleagues (2012). Dating Aboriginal stone-walled fishtraps at Lake Condah, southeast Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science 39, 268 to 286. Gunditjmara Country.
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2019). Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, inscription documentation.
• Beaton, J. M. (1982). Fire and water: aspects of Australian Aboriginal management of cycads. Archaeology in Oceania 17, 51 to 58.
• Isaacs, J. (1987). Bush Food: Aboriginal food and herbal medicine. Weldons; and Low, T. (1990). Bush Medicine: a pharmacopoeia of natural remedies. Angus and Robertson.
• Bureau of Meteorology, Indigenous Weather Knowledge project, seasonal calendars published with the communities that hold them.