Wildlife experts worry that more than a billion plants have perished in the  wave of bushfires that have ravaged eastern and southern Australia for months.

SYDNEY: Australia’s bushfires have burned more than half the known habitat of 100 threatened plants and animals, including 32 critically endangered species, the government said Monday (Jan 20).

Twenty-eight people died in the blazes, which have swept through an area larger than Portugal.

Officials say it will take weeks to assess the exact toll as many fire grounds remain too dangerous to inspect.

But the government’s Department of the Environment and Energy on Monday issued a preliminary list of threatened species of plants, animals and insects which have seen more than 10 per cent of their known habitat affected.

More than 80 per cent of the known or likely habitats of 49 species has fallen within fire zones, while another 65 species have seen 50 to 80 per cent of their distribution areas affected.

“Some species are more vulnerable to fire than others and some areas were more severely burnt than others, so further analysis will be needed before we can fully assess the impact of the fires on the ground,” she said.

The threatened species in the path of the fires included 272 plant, 16 mammal, 14 frog, nine bird, seven reptile, four insect, four fish and one spider species, the department said.

Of the 32 critically endangered species impacted by the fires, most were plants though they also included frogs, turtles and three types of bird.