Vegetation

More than 1100 native plant species are found in the park, many of these specially adapted to survive the severe winter climate. Twelve species, including the Bogong Daisy-bush and Silky Daisy, are found nowhere else in the world.

Mature Alpine Ash forests are common up the mountains.

Snow Gums are the predominant eucalypts in the woodlands around the snowline.

In higher exposed areas where conditions are too severe for trees, the vegetation changes to heathlands, alpine herbfields and grasslands, mossbeds and snowpatch communities.

Animals

The park supports a wide diversity of animals. Threatened species include the Smoky Mouse, Broad-toothed Rat, Powerful Owl, Spotted Tree Frog and She-oak Skink. The rare Mountain Pygmy-possum is the world's only exclusively alpine marsupial and the only marsupial that stores food to last throughout the winter.

The Mountain Pygmy-possum lives on isolated rocky slopes covered with heathland, a specialised habitat found only in a few places within the Victorian and New South Wales Alps.

Bogong Moths are interesting insects inhabiting the Bogong and Dargo high plains and peaks between November and April, away from the heat of the inland plains.

They shelter in rock crevices and provide food for Mountain Pygmy-possums and Little Ravens.