Why Are There So Many Unique Animals In Australia

There are around 386.

Why are there so many unique animals in australia. About 50 million years ago Australia became an island. Why is Australian wildlife so unique. A marsupial is an animal that carries the young in her pouch.

The distribution of climates topography and soils that has produced the zones and ecological variation of Australian vegetation has also been reflected in the distribution of animal life. The continent of Australia has vast expenses of desert and semi-arid land in its interior sub-tropical rain forest in the Northeast. Australia and New Zealand are wonderlands filled with exotic animal species.

Australia is the kingdom of marsupials home to furry kangaroos koalas and wombats. For millions of years the Australian continent was so far away from any other landmass that there was no possibility for new types of animals to get to it. Sea levels were much lower than today.

This high level of endemism is a result of Australias long period of isolation from other continents since its separation from Gondwana about 40 million years ago. These animals were made for where they live and they make their habitats there. The platypus and two species of echidna are the worlds only egg-laying mammals so called monotremes.

The continent has so many marsupials it raises the question. The most famous animals in australia is probably the koala and kangaroo. Tiny Pouch Babies Well focus on marsupials since Australia is home to two-thirds of the worlds 330-some known pouch-baby species including egg-laying mammals known as monotremes like the bizarre duck-billed platypus.

Because Australia was separated from the rest of the world so all of the flora and fauna in Australia continued to grow only in Australia. Many of Australias animals are unique simply because Australia is a continent separate from other large land masses. Initial studies by Richard Culp show that there are minimal differences between many North American European and Asian varieties of certain plant and animal species Culp 1988.