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At the commencement of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) the list of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes consisted only of those previously listed under the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992.

Under the EPBC Act new categories have been added for listed threatened species and ecological communities. Critically endangered, conservation dependant and extinct in the wild have been added to the previous categories of endangered, vulnerable and extinct for threatened species and critically endangered and vulnerable have been added to the previous category of endangered for ecological communities. The definition of a species under the EPBC Act includes sub-species and distinct populations that the Minister has determined to be species for the purposes of the Act.

New nominations for species and ecological communities will be assessed under the EPBC Act by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) according to the criteria for the new categories and listed accordingly. The TSSC will reconsider the status of the initial list of threatened species and communities in line with the new refined EPBC categories as information is updated and made available for assessment.

Where two scientific names appear, the first is the name of the species as listed under the EPBC Act, and the name after the "=" symbol is the currently accepted scientific name.

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