One of the
most attractive aspects of Australia is its fascinating assortment of peculiar
animals. Some of them, like the kangaroo, koala
bear,
dingo, wallabies,
platypus, Tasmanian devil
(raccoon-like marsupial), wombat (bear-like
marsupial), barking and frilled
lizards cannot be
found elsewhere. It is mainly due to the fact that for long prehistoric period
(55 million years) this continent was quite isolated from the others. Marsupials
are mammals (savce) which give birth to tiny, poorly developed offspring (potomstvo).
In most species, the babies mature in a pouch (vak) on the mother's abdomen.
Australia is also home to many types of cockatoos, parakeets
and other parrots, as well as two large flightless birds, the emu and the
cassowary. The laughing Kookaburra is one of Australia's best-known birds.
Sheep, rabbits and horses
(the wild ones are called
brumbies) were
brought from England. Rabbits increased and grew wild and mean a big danger for Australian
farmers.
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SALT-WATER
CROCODILE
(Crocodylus
Porosus)
The salt-water crocodile, found in the mangrove belt of the
Northern Territory, is dangerous to man, particularly during the late dry season
when territorial instincts impel the animals to protect their share of shrinking
wetlands and also during the mating season – November to May. They grow up to
5 metres in length and can live to a great age of a century or more. Nests
consist of rafts of floating vegetation and hatching of the fifteen to seventy
eggs takes place after approximately 85 days. While saltwater crocodiles do prey
on pigs, cattle, buffalo and horses, their more usual diet is fish and birds.
When prey is caught it has little chance of escape as a large crocodile can
exert a pressure equivalent to 5 tonnes per square centimetre between its jaws.
(Tachyglossus aculeatus)
This small shy animal is the nearest living relative to the
platypus, being the only other living monotreme in the world. Mating is usually
July-August with a variable time of 9-27 days, after which one egg is laid.
These otherwise defenceless creatures have remarkable digging
ability. The Spiny And-eater’s diet is mainly ants which are obtained by rapid
thrusting out of the long sticky tongue to which the ants adhere. They have no
teeth, but horny serrations on the back of the tongue which grind food against
ridges of the palate.
These little animals which inhabit open forest
and rocky scrub lands, occur widely throughout the Australian Mainland, Tasmania
and New Guinea.
EMU
(Dromaius novae-hollandiae)
The emu, which is found only in Australia, is the second
largest bird in the world, a relative of the ostrich which you can find in South
Africa. The emu is about two metres tall. It cannot fly as its wings are rather
short for its heavy body – it is flightless. Instead of flight, the emu relies
upon speed for survival in its natural habitat, which is the dry plains country
of the inland. Their long legs make emus good runners. Beautiful feathers cover
their heads and necks. The species can be found all over Australia except
Tasmania, where it is extinct. Apart of its great speed, up to 64 km per hour,
the emu is also unusual in that although the female lays the eggs, it is the
male which incubates them, and afterwards does most of the shepherding of the
striped, inquisitive chicks.
GALAH
- ROSE BREASTED COCKATOO
(Cacatua
roseicapilla)
Flocks of these exquisite
pink and grey
cockatoos are a familiar sight over most of Australia, particularly in the dry
areas where there is plentiful supply of seeds. They are partial to wheat. When
not feeding they wheel around the sky performing mass manoeuvres. The great
charm of the galah flock is the sudden change from grey backs to pink undersides
as the flock tilts or wheels. When resting they keep up a continuous playful
squabble among themselves, performing acrobatics on trees and power lines, or
chivvying other birds, seemingly for fun.
The kangaroo is the most well-known of the
Australian animals. The many members of the family range in size from large
plains kangaroos and wallabies to tiny rat-kangaroos. With one exception, they
are adapted to ground living, and move rapidly by jumping with their powerful
hind legs.
The kangaroo is a strange animal whose female has a pouch in
which its young are carried. It is the same now as in prehistoric times.
Kangaroos have strong back legs and fight well with their feet. There are red
kangaroos and grey kangaroos. They are quite big animals - they grow up to 1.5 m
and weigh up to 90 kg. Their tails are 90 cm long. Kangaroos live in groups.
They can jump very well. Kangaroos are famous for their jumping or hopping. When
hopping along, they reach a speed of 50 km/hour. They can jump three metres high
and their jump is 7.5 metres long.
The female kangaroo gives birth to a baby kangaroo at any time of the year. The
kangaroo baby, or “joey” stays in its mother's pouch for six months. As it
grows it leaves the pouch, but comes back for safety. There is usually a reserve
“joey” waiting to be born as soon as the pouch is vacated.
People hunt kangaroos for their meat and skin. Kangaroos eat
green grass and other vegetation. Australians don't like kangaroos because these
animals eat grass and then there is not enough grass for the sheep. People build
fences to protect grazing land from kangaroos. But kangaroos are good jumpers.
Fences do not keep them away from green grass.
THE KOALA
The
koala
is a tree-climbing mammal that looks more like a children's toy than a real
animal. It is a typical animal for Australia and New Zealand. It lives in trees.
It eats the leaves of eucalyptus trees. Koala
is a little cousin in the bear family, but very lovely. They have large, bushy
ears, prominent wide eyes and short, woolly fur. Koala babies are only 19 mm
when born, but they can still climb into the mother’s warm pouch, where they
stay for about five to six months, after which they spend other three to four
months clinging to her back with their strong claws while she travels from tree
to tree or when she is resting, cuddled up in her arms.
KOOKABURRA
(Dacelo gigas)
Because the
kookaburra wakes the morning with
a call resembling a peal of rollicking laughter, this bush comedian is also
known as bushman’s clock. Originally found only in eastern Australia, the
laughing kookaburra is now also widespread throughout southwestern Australia and
Tasmania, where you can see it flying in search of food – snakes, lizards, and
other small bush creatures. Kookaburras are comparatively large, with a wingspan
of up to 74 cm. They are friendly birds, with habit of visiting camps and houses
for food, and show great companionship for each other.
FAIRY
PENGUIN
(Eudyptula
minor)
The fairy
penguin, or little blue penguin, is
the smallest of its kind, about 40 cm high, and is found only along the southern
coasts of Victoria and Tasmania, the southwest corner of Western Australia, and
the South Island of New Zealand. Fairy penguins are extremely good swimmers,
speedy, with a strong beak to catch fish, their main source of food. They have
little fear of humans, and ignore completely the nightly spectacle of thousands
of tourists watching for their return from the sea at Phillip Island in
Victoria, where their nightly walk up the beach to their burrows is known as the
“Penguin Parade”.
THE PLATYPUS
(Ornithorhynchus
anatinus)
There are only two species of egg-laying mammals in the
world, the platypus and the echidna, both of which are confident entirely to the
Australian region. The
platypus is probably the
world's strangest animal. It is said to be made up of left-over parts of other
animals. It has a bill and webbed feet like a duck, a furry body resembling an
otter, a flattened, beaver-like tail, and lays eggs like a hen. But it is a
mammal suckling its young and has a hairy body. When hatched, the young lap up
milk which oozes from pores in the mother’s belly. At first, it was difficult
to believe that such an unusual animal could exist, and later, scientists placed
it somewhere between the reptiles and the higher animals, but not directly
related to marsupials or the more advanced mammals, having probably evolved
independently of them.
SUPERB
LYREBIRD
(Menura
novaehollandiae)
Perhaps the most renowned of all Australian birds are the
lyrebirds. Their remarkable mimicry and their dancing displays have made them
world-famous. The dense forests of eastern Australia are their main habitat,
where the male builds a number of mounds on the forest floor and dances with its
60 cm tail raised in gorgeous display. The two main tail feathers are called
lyrates because of their shape of a lyre when raised. Both male and female birds
have a remarkable repertoire of calls, some their own and many imitations of
sounds normally heard in their area, including the calls of other birds and
sounds made by humans.
TASMANIAN DEVIL
(Sarcophilus harrisii)
Tasmania Island is the home of the large,
fierce Tasmanian devils. The Tasmanian Devil is unlike any other marsupial; it
is powerfully built, about the size of a medium dog, and black in colour, except
for a white band on the chest and often a patch of white on the rump. It is a
flesh eater, feeding mainly on medium-sized animals and birds, which it consumes
down to the last shred of skin and bone. Although mainly a ground dweller, it is
also at home above ground, as it is a competent climber. Like all marsupials,
the female carries her young for some months in a pouch.
WOMBAT
(Vombatus
hirsutus)
The
common wombat is a thick-set powerful marsupial found in the mountainous regions
of eastern Australia, southern Victoria, the southeast of South Australia, and
Tasmania. It is a comparatively large animal, growing to about 1.3 metres in
length, with a weight when full-grown of well over 30 kg.
Wombats feed at night,
on grasses, roots and other vegetable matter, and spend the day in large
burrows, sometimes more than 12 metres long and 2 metres underground. For this
reason they are not always popular with people on whose land they live. Once
they are accustomed to people, wombats become very friendly, and have been known
to follow humans around.
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