However, they then suckle their young and display many other mammalian traits.

Rather than giving birth to live young, they lay eggs. Monotremes are a unique and extraordinary group of animals. The wombat is related to the koala, but instead of making its home up a tree and dining on gum leaves, it uses its powerful digging paws to make burrows under stumps, logs or in creek banks. This laid-back marsupial is now a completely protected animal. So great was the slaughter that urgent steps were taken to save the koala in the 1920s. The koala’s habit of sleeping openly in the forks of gum (eucalyptus) trees made it an easy target for colonial hunters seeking koala fur. Unfortunately, the typical Australian visitor is most likely to encounter these crepuscular creatures on the road, as a fleeting glimpse in the headlights of a vehicle. Sadly for visitors just passing through, these species tend to be most active at dawn and dusk. It is the herbivores that abound in the land Down Under, including the shy koala, which is not even remotely related to the bear family many varieties of possum, including the ringtail and the sugar glider the wombat and the macropods, or hopping marsupials, such as the kangaroo, wallaby and potoroo. The latter, however, is now extinct (except in the minds of a a handful of die-hard environmentalists who believe that a few lone individuals survive in the Tasmanian wilderness). The larger members of the carnivorous group include the Tasmanian devil and the Tasmanian tiger (thylacine). Most marsupials are herbivorous, but there are some that include insects, small reptiles or smaller mammals in their diets. Marsupials give birth to partially formed embryos which remain secure in a pouch until they are strong enough to survive independently. In Australia, marsupials are by far the most prominent group. The native dog, the dingo, is one, but was only introduced into Australia by Aboriginal immigrants within the past 20,000 years. However, very few examples of this group can be found among the native Australian fauna. There are three groups: placentals, marsupials and monotremes.Įlsewhere on Earth the placental group proliferates. Warm-blooded and furred, mammals almost all give birth to live young and suckle them. The sheer age of the Australian landmass and its isolation from other continents allowed its animals and plants to adapt to their unique environment and evolve independently of the rest of the world, unchallenged until the arrival of the European colonists and the onset of the technological age.įor the perfect example of a uniquely evolved animal, take the Australian mammal. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world, and there’s a reason for that.

Of the unique animals Down Under, possums, at least, have their counterparts in the Americas (the Virginia opossum) but the Australian kangaroo stands alone. Even in the big cities, bereft of kangaroos as they may be, there will be possums to intrigue the tourist and frustrate the locals, whose fruit they eat and whose eaves they burrow into. The proximity of the wild means there’s a fair likelihood of encountering a smattering of mammals, birds or reptiles that will surprise and delight a visitor from overseas. In smaller towns and settlements, many of which appear to have only a toehold on the harsh antipodean landscape, the bush is often just over the back fence. And yet, if you just wander down past the National War Memorial in Canberra, the nation’s capital, at dusk, there’s a very good chance that you’ll find a mob of kangaroos grazing on the lawn. Both ideas are popular, and both are almost entirely false. It has become one of those stereotypical notions or urban legends, alongside the idea that most Aussie men are like Crocodile Dundee. Research findings are thin as to just how many people around the world actually believe that kangaroos are a regular sight on the city streets of Australia. The result is a range of plants and animals that are found nowhere else on Earth. Australia has been a separate island long enough for evolution to take a unique path.

Are platypus marsupials