Australia's fauna and the flora they depend on
Australia's wildlife |
Australia's Wildlife
For local wildlife seen on our tours, click here
Australia was once part of the great southern super-continent Gondwana.
About 50 million years ago Australia and New Guinea jointly drifted away from Antarctica, this event being the final breakup of continent-sized landmasses.
As it drifted northwards it was isolated for many millions of years until it came close to southeast Asia. Thus its fauna and flora include many species whose ancestors were in Gondwana, some of which, like the freshwater turtles and tree frogs, still resemble their cousins across the sea, while others, like the kangaroos and platypus, are remarkably different from animals on any other continent.
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Mammals |  |
Birds |  |
Reptiles |  |
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Fish |  |
Insects |  |
Spiders, crabs and kin |  |
Mammal are vertebrates that give milk to their young. Most are hairy.
There are three great groups of mammals on Earth, subdivided according to how their young are born: (1) monotremes which lay eggs (many mammals used to lay eggs in the Cretaceous, but today there are only four species left, and found only in Australia and New Guinea); (2) marsupials, whose young are born in a very embryonic state and continue development attached firmly to the mother's teat in a pouch or pouch-like flap of skin; and (3) placentals, whose young are born at a much more advanced stage.
Monotremes - egg-laying mammals
The platypus, arguably the world's strangest mammal, in found only in Australia. The first specimens taken to England were regarded as a hoax - no animal could look like that! And that was even before it was known that although they're hairy and give milk to their babies they lay eggs, that they are the world's only known poisonous mammal (the male has a venomous spur on his hind leg) and they find their prey not with eyes and ears but by electricity (the rubbery duck-like bill is sensitive electric impulses emitted by their prey's muscles and transmitted through the water).
There is one species of echidna in Australia, and 2 in New Guinea. Like the platypus, they lay eggs, but unlike the platypus the female, prior to laying, forms a small pouch in which to carry the eggs and young. Echidnas are spiny, but have very different spines and faces to hedgehogs and porcupines, both of which are placentals and not at all closely related. The echidna's closest living relative is, of course, the platypus.
Major divisions of marsupials:
a. mostly herbivorous, with two front teeth, and the 2nd and 3rd toes of the hind feet joined as a grooming tool, front feet often true hands with opposable thumbs
They include the kangaroos, wallabies, rat-kangaroos, koalas, wombats, possums (NOT the American opossums - see below), gliders, cuscuses and honey possums (which although called possums are in a group of their own)
b. mostly omnivorous (eating a variety of plant and animal matter), with many front teeth, and the hind foot resembling herbivorous marsupials in having the 2nd and 3rd toe joined (used for grooming)
These include the bandicoots and bilbies
c. mostly carnivorous (or insectivorous), and mostly with many front teeth, and without the 2nd and 3rd toe joined
These include the 'dasyrurids': the well-known Tasmanian devil, the quolls (largest mainland predatory marsupials: cat-sized), phascogales, kowari, dunnart, antechinus, dunnart, planigale. The opossums of the Americas also fall into this group.
Also in the general carnivorous/insectivorous group are the numbat and the marsupial 'mole,' both sufficiently different from other marsupials to have whole taxonomic orders to themselves.
Placentals (young born at a more advanced stage)
Australia has NO native placental carnivores (i.e. cats, dogs, bears, raccoons etc - but the dingo, now known as Australia's wild dog, was introduced about 3000 years ago), NO hoofed animals (deer, goats etc.) NO primates (monkeys and apes) and indeed NO native placentals except those listed below
Bats - (a) megabats (do not echo-locate but use sight, sound and smell in much the same way as most other mammals, usually eat fruit or nectar or both, and found from Africa to the Southwest Pacific), (b) microbats (echo-locate, usually eat insects, found on all continents). The microbats reached Australia many million of years ago, but there is no evidence of the megabats being here more than about a million years.
Rodents - in Australia all native rodents are in the rats-and-mice family (no native squirrels, porcupines, beavers etc.). Their ancestors appear to have arrived here around 4 million years ago and have diversified since then into many different species, especially in drier regions (although several species are very common in our rainforests). In fact about a quarter of all our mammal species are rodents.
Marine mammals - these include seals, sea-lions, dugong, dolphins and whales
Birds are vertebrates that have feathers and lay eggs. All have two legs and almost all have wings.
Songbirds may have first arisen in the Australian part of Gondwana, and today we have many songbird families either confined to or centered in Australia and New Guinea. The common names given by early settlers - such as magpie, robin, thrush, wren etc. are misleading, as the birds that still bear such names here are generally not related to birds with similar names in the Northern Hemisphere.
The lyrebirds - found only in Australia - are probably the world's best mimics. The male raises his lyre-like, shimmery tail, and produces a lengthy and very remarkable song featuring many calls of other birds plus other forest sounds (and sometimes nowadays some human-origin sounds such as axes and cameras) in an attempt to attract the female as well as announcing that his territorial boundaries are still being protected.
The bowerbirds are found only in Australia and New Guinea. The males, which take several years to mature, make 'bowers' of varying complexity, some of them highly decorated, into which to attract the female for breeding.
Birds of Paradise are also found only in Australia in New Guinea. Most are in New Guinea, just four species (three riflebirds and the manucode) being found in Australia.
Magpie geese are not really geese, but in a family all their own. They are most common in the far north, but can sometimes be seen as far south as New South Wales.
The wedgetailed eagle is our largest eagle, slightly larger than the American bald eagle. The largest talons in Australia however belong to the white-bellied sea-eagle.
There are too many bird families to readily list here, but there are many excellent Australian bird books available.
Reptiles are vertebrates that have scales, cannot regulate their body temperature the way birds and mammals can, and breathe through lungs from birth (or hatching)
Australia has over 1000 species of reptiles and amphibians, including lizards (five families), snakes (four terrestrial families plus seas-snakes), turtles (freshwater and marine) and crocodiles.
There are 5 families of lizards, the largest family being the skinks, and Australia has the world's highest diversity of skinks. The other families are the dragons (the family is named after a gliding lizard in southeast Asia), the geckos, the monitors (usually called 'goannas' in Australia) and the flap-footed lizards (a primarily Australian family, also called 'legless lizards' or 'snake-lizrds'). We do NOT have iguanas, although some of our dragons look a bit like them.
The common snakes of most countries are in the colubrid family (rear-fanged snakes), but most of Australia's are in the elapid family (front-fanged snakes) and this contains all our dangerous, highly venomous species as well as some harmless ones and some which could cause pain and nausea without being life-threatening. Other terrestrial families are pythons (Australia has more species than any other country) and blind snakes. We do NOT have cobras, we do NOT have adders and vipers ( although one dangerous elapid looks a bit like an adder and is called a death adder) and we do NOT have boas (but our pythons behave in a similar way, and - like the boas - are NEVER venomous, but of course can still bite, as can most animals).
Our freshwater turtles are related to those of South America, and we share marine turtles with the warm waters throughout the world. We have NO land tortoises.
There are two species of crocodile - one (Johnstone's crocodile, also known as the freshwater crocodile) found only in Australia, the other (the saltwater crocodile) found from Australia to India.
Amphibians are vertebrates that start their life breathing through gills like fish, then develop lungs and breathe air.
Australia's native amphibians are all frogs (even though some are called 'toads' or 'toadlets' because of bumpy skin; and the cane toad has been introduced from Central America and now poisoning many native animals that eat it). We have NO native toads, NO newts and NO salamanders. Our frogs however are many and varied (as are their calls), and those of the 'southern frog' family have some unusual ways of raising their young. Unfortunately, one of the strangest of all, the gastric-brooding frog, which swallowed her eggs after fertilization and reared the tadpoles in her stomach, now appears to be extinct, so the chance for scientists to investigate their method of switching off their digestive enzymes (which it was hoped would lead to useful treatments for patients with stomach ulcers) is gone forever.
The frogs mostly belong to two large families with Gondwanan ancestry - the tree frogs and the 'southern frogs,' with a few species of Northern Hemisphere ancestry found in the far north
Fish
Fish arevertebrates that live their entire lives in water, breathe through gills and don't go through the kind of dramatic life-change that amphibians do (although some, like the lungfish, have developed ways of occasionally breathing in air).
Australia's freshwater fish have all evolved relatively recently from marine ancestors - we don't have the families common in other continents with a long evolutionary history of freshwater life.
Lungfish still occur in some of Queensland's rivers.
Eels start their lives near Fiji and Samoa, make a journey to Australian rivers, and years later find their way back to their birthplace to breed.
The world's largest fish, the whale-shark, visits the western coast each year. Carefully-controlled diving near these huge creatures (which feed only on plankton) is a popular tourist activity.
The world-famous Great Barrier Reef harbours a vast and fascinating diversity of fish, some of which featured in the popular cartoon 'Finding Nemo.' The diversity is simply to great to attempt to do it justice here.
Some interesting species inhabit our cooler marine waters also, such as the strange leafy sea-dragon, which can sometimes be seen by divers near Kangaroo Island and other parts of the southern coastline.
This is the largest group of invertebrates, with at least a million species worldwide.
Other invertebrates
Sea-stars, sea-urchins and sea-cucumbers
Molluscs
Earthworms and leeches
Flatworms
Jellyfish, anemones and corals
Sponges
Various other groups of small creatures
What do the words 'vertebrate' and 'invertebrate' mean?
Vertebrates are animals with a chord of nerve tissue running from the brain down the centre of their backs protected by a series of small bones (or cartilage in some of the more 'primitive' fish such as sharks and rays) known as vertebrae. This column of bones is often called a 'vertebral column', a 'backbone', or a 'spine'. All vertebrates also have skull and ribs, and apart from fish most have four limbs (either four legs, two wings and two legs, or two arms and two legs).
Invertebrates do not have vertebrae, and their nervous systems are in various positions. The largest group of invertebrates are the arthropods, including insects, spiders, crustaceans and others with an external skeleton (exoskeleton), a tough skin which supports and holds the softer body parts in place in much the same way that the internal skeleton of vertebrates does for theirs. Other invertebrates are molluscs (which often have hard eternal shells), various long thin animals we call 'worms' (which include several distinctly different and unrelated groups), anemones and their relatives, sea-stars and their relatives, and various other groups.
back to: mammals birds reptiles amphibians fish insects spiders other invertebrates
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Some useful books:
Bennett, J., Worley, M., Donaldson, B., Andrew, D., Geering, D., Povey, A. and Cohen, M. (2000). Watching Wildlife Australia. Lonely Planet Publications. Pty Ltd, Hawthorn
Bryden, M. Marsh, H. and Shaughessy, P. (1998). Dugongs, Whales, Dolphins and Seals: a Guide to the Sea Mammals of Australia. Allen and Unwin, St Leonards
Cogger, H. G. (2000). Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia. Reed New Holland, Sydney (comprehensive identification book)
Common, I. F. B. and Waterhouse, D. F. (1981). Butterflies of Australia. Angus and Robertson, London
Green, R. J. Australia's Wildlife (given to each of our wildlife tourists, also for sale separately)
Pizzey, G. and Knight, F. (1997). Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Angus and Robertson, Sydney
Reader’s Digest (1997). Encyclopaedia of Australian Wildlife. Reader’s Digest, Sydney (it can’t include all species the way the more specialized books do, but does give a good coverge of mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs, freshwater and marine fish, and some invertebrates)
Reader’s Digest (1990). Reader’s Digest Book of the Great Barrier Reef. Reader’s Digest Services, Sydney.
Simpson, K, and Day, N. (1996), Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Viking Publishers, Ringwood
Slater, P. , Slater, P. and Slater, R. (1989). The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds. Landsdowne Publishers, The Rocks, Sydney
Strahan, R. (ed.) (1998). The Mammals of Australia. New Holland Publishers, Sydney, New South Wales (comprehensive identification book with interesting information about each animal)
Zbrowksi, P. and Storey, R. (1995). A Field Guide to Insects of Australia. Reed Books, Kew (an amazing amount of detail packed into a compact paperback book)
Also try browsing in major bookstores such as Bookworld or Dymmocks, seconhand bookstores dealing in quality books, university bookshops, museum bookshops and websites such as Amazon.com. Andrew Isles bookstore in Melbourne also has a great range of natural history books (especially on birds) both new and secondhand, and has a detailed website.
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Amphibians