Stapleton Island is a small (4 ha) island on the northern Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world'slargest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres over an area of approximately...

 of Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland

Far North Queensland, or FNQ, is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. The region, which contains a large section of the Tropical North Queensland area, stretches from the city of Cairns north to the Torres Strait...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It lies about 40 km off Cape Melville

Cape Melville

Cape Melville is a headland on the eastern coast of the Cape York Peninsula. To its west lies Princess Charlotte Bay. It is part of the Cape Melville National Park....

 on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

. It is important as a nesting site for boobies

Booby

A booby is a seabird in the genus Sula, part of the Sulidae family. Boobies are closely related to the gannets , which were formerly included in Sula.-Description:...

 and tern

Tern

Terns are seabirds in the family Sternidae, previously considered a subfamily of the gull family Laridae . They form a lineage with the gulls and skimmers which in turn is related to skuas and auks...

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Description

The island is an elongated cay

Cay

A cay , also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island formed on the surface of coral reefs. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans , where they provide habitable and agricultural land for hundreds of thousands of people...

, about 500 m long with a maximum width of 100 m. It is constituted of coral

Coral

Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

 sand and reef rubble rising to a central ridge 5 m above sea-level. The outer edge has a beach community of herbs

Herbaceous plant

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 and the sand ridge is dominated by low shrubs and Lepturus grass. The island is a designated Preservation Area within the Howick Group National Park

Howick Group National Park

Howick Group is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 1,689 km northwest of Brisbane....

 with no general public access.

Birds

The island has been identified by BirdLife International

BirdLife International

BirdLife International is a global Partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources...

 as an Important Bird Area

Important Bird Area

An Important Bird Area is an area recognized as being globally important habitat for the conservation of bird populations. Currently there are about 10,000 IBAs worldwide. The program was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife International...

 (IBA) because it has supported over 1% of the world populations of Brown Boobies

Brown Booby

The Brown Booby is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. The adult brown booby reaches about in length. Its head and upper body are covered in dark brown, with the remainder being a contrasting white. The juvenile form is gray-brown with darkening on the head, wings and tail...

 (with up to 1000 nests) and Lesser Crested Tern

Lesser Crested Tern

The Lesser Crested Tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae...

s (up to 9800 breeding pairs). There have also been counts of up to 10,000 breeding pairs of both Bridled

Bridled Tern

The Bridled Tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. It is a bird of the tropical oceans.-Description:...

 and Sooty Tern

Sooty Tern

The Sooty Tern, Onychoprion fuscatus , is a seabird of the tern family . It is a bird of the tropical oceans, breeding on islands throughout the equatorial zone. Colloquially, it is known as the Wideawake Tern or just wideawake...

s, as well as breeding records of Black-naped

Black-naped Tern

The Black-naped Tern is an oceanic tern mostly found in tropical and subtropical areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It is rarely found inland....

, Crested and Little Tern

Little Tern

The Little Tern, Sternula albifrons or Sterna albifrons, is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. It was formerly placed into the genus Sterna, which now is restricted to the large white terns . The former North American and Red Sea S. a...

s, Common Noddies and Australian Pelican

Australian Pelican

The Australian Pelican is a large water bird, widespread on the inland and coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea, also in Fiji, parts of Indonesia and as a vagrant to New Zealand.-Taxonomy:...

s.