The Extintion of Australian Megafauna
The Extinction of Australian Megafauna
Until 30-40,000 years ago, Australia was home to wombats the size of rhinos, seven-meter-long lizards and three-metre tall kangaroos. These megafauna were probably eliminated due to human-induced climate change like that which is happening to the Amazon. Today, wide-scale burning of the Amazon runs the risk of turning rainforest into savannah. In a rainforest, 50 per cent of rainfall gets recycled by the ecosystem. Rain falls, is trapped, sucked up by trees, released into the atmosphere, reaches a critical humidity and then falls again at a different location. When the land is cleared; however, not only does less recycling occur, less rain falls. The ecosystem then collapses forever.
50,000 years ago in Australia, large-scale burning of the land likewise turned rainforest into savannah, and then into desert. After the foliage was razed to the ground, rain fell and soaked into the sand or quickly evaporated under the scorching sun. In turn, a reduction in humidity decreased the number of clouds forming.
In 2004 and 2005, Dr John Magee and Dr Michael Gagana from the Australian National University showed that burning caused a decrease in the exchange of water vapour between the biosphere and atmosphere. Clouds stopped forming and the annual monsoon over central Australia failed. Whereas once the Nullarbor Plain was home to forests and tree dwelling Kangaroos, now it is desert. Likewise, Lake Eyre, formerly a deep-water lake in Australia's interior, is now a huge salt flat occasionally covered by ephemeral floods. (1) A small change caused a chain reaction that led to a large change.
The revelations of human-induced climate change married the previous two competing theories regarding the extinction of the megafauna. Previously, one group of scientists had argued that natural climate change caused the extinctions. This approach failed to explain why the megafauna had survived more extreme climatic changes over the last 1.5 million years. Another group of scientists had argued that humans had hunted megafauna to extinction. This approach failed to explain why the fossil record showed evidence of ecosystem collapse associated with climatic change.
After human-induced climate change caused the rains to fail, it became impossible for humans to remain in balance with the ecosystem. When Australia had been fertile, human population densities had been high and may have been in balance with megafauna. When the ecosystem collapsed, they used their skills of adaptation to hunt megafauna to extinction.
Megafauna and humans co-existing
Cuddle Springs in north central NSW is currently the only place in Australia where evidence has been found of megafauna and humans co-existing. Excavations by a team from the University of Sydney has found evidence that megafauna were living at the site 30,000 years ago. If correct, this means that they must have survived the human-induced climate change and also lived alongside humans for a further 15,000 years.
Because the megafauna bones don't contain detectable amounts of protein, no direct dating methods have been used. Instead, they have been dated according to the layers of dirt around them. Consequently, some scientists have disputed the ages because the process of site formation may have involved some mixing of materials of different ages. This mixing may have created a perception of co-existence where none actually occured.
If one takes a view that the University of Sydney's estimates are accurate, there is a small chance that the megafauna was farmed by humans. If humans were farming the Megafauna, they could have preserved them at Cuddle Springs long after they had been hunted to extinction around the rest of Australia.
The now extinct Diprotodon may have been suitable for animal husbandry. Weighing 32 times as much as a Red Kangaroo, it could have been enclosed in a pen and humans could have fed on its blood, milk and flesh. The Genyornis was another. A flightless bird four times larger than an Emu, it could have been enclosed in a pens and humans could have fed on its eggs and flesh.
There is some evidence of farming. An unusual feature of the dig at Cuddle Springs is that the Diprotodon is one of the few animals that was associated with human butchering tools. If the humans were merely hunter gatherers, many of the smaller animals should also also have lived alongside them and should have also been associated with butchering tools. The fact that the butchering tools have only been associated with the larger animals suggests that the humans lived off the larger animals.
Grinding stones, which are typically found in agricultural societies, are the only direct evidence of farming at Cuddle Springs. The presence of 30,000-year-old grinding stones at Cuddle Springs is quite unusual because they predate all other grinding stones around the world by 20,000 years. Hunter gatherers just don't use grinding stones.
*At present, no researchers argue that the humans that existed at Cuddle Springs were anything other than hunter gatherers.
Dissenting views
The theory of human-induced climate change proposed by Dr John Magee and Dr Michael Gagana is not universally accepted. Other scientists propose some alternative theories.
Natural climate change was the cause of Megafauna extinction
In 1998 David Bowman, an ecology expert from Charles Darwin University, argued that humans did not have the population density or the technology to efficiently wipe out megafauna. According to Bowman:
"It should be remembered that it becomes increasingly difficult to kill off a species as their population is reduced to low levels because of the extra hunting effort required to find the last remaining animals." (2)
While Bowman was correct in his assertion that a decline in prey numbers would necessitate more work on behalf of the hunters, common sense would also stipulate that as numbers decline, a species' genetic diversity declines with it. Whether the last animal dies as a result of a spear or disease is irrelevant because it was over hunting the caused population decline. Certainly humans managed to hunt the Tasmanian Tiger into extinction even though population decline required more effort to hunt them.
As an alternative to the over-hunting theory, Bowman proposed that the megafauna were wiped out by climactic changes. In Bowman's opinion, these climate changes had nothing to do with human action. To the contrary, human action limited the severity of climate change. According to Bowman:
"They intervened and they changed the habitat balance with their fire management practices and, in doing so conserved some habitats, such as rainforest, that might otherwise have been lost during the extreme aridity that characterised the end of the last ice-age some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago." (2)
Like his theory that a decline in population would somehow save a species, Bowman's theory that burning forests somehow preserved them was also on the silly side. By Bowman's logic, people today should counter the threat of global-warming-induced drought by investing in some flame throwers. Fire does not help ecosystems. It does not magically infuse water or nutrients. The explosion of greenery sometimes seen after a fire is simply a case of plant species using weakness in the ecosystem as the best time to push for individual dominance.
A final problem with Bowman's theory is that almost all the biggest animals appear to have gone extinct well before the ice age reached its maximum, and at least 20,000 years before the megafauna from nth America went extinct. If the climate change was a global phenomenon, megafauna extinction around the world should have happened at a similar time. The Australian extinctions were before other countries.
University of Queensland PhD researcher Gilbert Price is another who supports the climate change theory of megafauna extinction. Price studied a 10-metre-deep section of creek bed in the Darling Downs region in Queensland's southeast. He found evidence of a very severe drought around 40-50,000 years ago, and megafauna dying, but no evidence of humans. According to Price,
"The research found no evidence of humans being involved in the accumulation of fossils in the catchment at the time of deposition, but is perfectly consistent with their decline being caused by increasing aridity...So it's most likely that Australia's giant kangaroos and other megafauna in this area were driven to extinction by the hands of Mother Nature." (4)
Price's research was useful in that it showed that there was very severe climate change 40-50,000 years ago in the Darling Down's region. It was not very useful in explaining megafauna extinction. Fossils only form when a dead animal is buried and the body is cut off from oxygen and water. Generally, when humans kill an animal, they do not bury the remains so few fossils form. Consequently, it would not be expected to find evidence of humans killing megafauna unless the region has some kind of mud slides that buried bodies.
Even if humans were not killing megafauna in Darling Downs, just because an animal is dying in a drought in one part of a country doesn't mean humans aren't hunting them in another. I.e, just because Kangaroos die in a drought in Victoria doesn't mean people aren't shooting them in Western Australia, or hunting them in areas where they could have potentially survived a drought. Price was trying to make his research appear more significant than it was. All that his research indicated was that there was climatic change in the Darling Downs region 40-50,000 years ago. His research didn’t show the cause of that climate change or what humans did during the climate change.
Hunting was the cause of megafauna extinction
Flinders University palaeontologist Gavin Prideaux has argued that the megafauna were hunted by humans. According to Prideaux:
"Our evidence show that the Naracoorte giants perished under climatic conditions similar to those under which they previously thrived, which strongly implicates humans in their extinction...the real issue now is trying to resolve whether it was hunting or whether it was landscape destruction through burning ... and a bit of both is more likely." (3)
Prideaux's view doesn't seem to incorporate research from the ANU showing human-induced climate change. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to incorporate some research showing a relationship between climate change and megafauna extinction. According to the ANU's Dr John Magee and Dr Michael Gagan:
"Neither over-hunting nor human-induced diseases, the two most widely cited alternative agents for a human-caused extinction event in Australia, would result in the dramatic changes at the base of the food web documented by our datasets,...the reduction of plant diversity, however it came about, would have led to the extinction of specialized herbivores and indirectly to the extinction of their non-human predators." (1)
Until 30-40,000 years ago, Australia was home to wombats the size of rhinos, seven-meter-long lizards and three-metre tall kangaroos. These megafauna were probably eliminated due to human-induced climate change like that which is happening to the Amazon. Today, wide-scale burning of the Amazon runs the risk of turning rainforest into savannah. In a rainforest, 50 per cent of rainfall gets recycled by the ecosystem. Rain falls, is trapped, sucked up by trees, released into the atmosphere, reaches a critical humidity and then falls again at a different location. When the land is cleared; however, not only does less recycling occur, less rain falls. The ecosystem then collapses forever.
50,000 years ago in Australia, large-scale burning of the land likewise turned rainforest into savannah, and then into desert. After the foliage was razed to the ground, rain fell and soaked into the sand or quickly evaporated under the scorching sun. In turn, a reduction in humidity decreased the number of clouds forming.
In 2004 and 2005, Dr John Magee and Dr Michael Gagana from the Australian National University showed that burning caused a decrease in the exchange of water vapour between the biosphere and atmosphere. Clouds stopped forming and the annual monsoon over central Australia failed. Whereas once the Nullarbor Plain was home to forests and tree dwelling Kangaroos, now it is desert. Likewise, Lake Eyre, formerly a deep-water lake in Australia's interior, is now a huge salt flat occasionally covered by ephemeral floods. (1) A small change caused a chain reaction that led to a large change.
The revelations of human-induced climate change married the previous two competing theories regarding the extinction of the megafauna. Previously, one group of scientists had argued that natural climate change caused the extinctions. This approach failed to explain why the megafauna had survived more extreme climatic changes over the last 1.5 million years. Another group of scientists had argued that humans had hunted megafauna to extinction. This approach failed to explain why the fossil record showed evidence of ecosystem collapse associated with climatic change.
After human-induced climate change caused the rains to fail, it became impossible for humans to remain in balance with the ecosystem. When Australia had been fertile, human population densities had been high and may have been in balance with megafauna. When the ecosystem collapsed, they used their skills of adaptation to hunt megafauna to extinction.
Megafauna and humans co-existing
Cuddle Springs in north central NSW is currently the only place in Australia where evidence has been found of megafauna and humans co-existing. Excavations by a team from the University of Sydney has found evidence that megafauna were living at the site 30,000 years ago. If correct, this means that they must have survived the human-induced climate change and also lived alongside humans for a further 15,000 years.
Because the megafauna bones don't contain detectable amounts of protein, no direct dating methods have been used. Instead, they have been dated according to the layers of dirt around them. Consequently, some scientists have disputed the ages because the process of site formation may have involved some mixing of materials of different ages. This mixing may have created a perception of co-existence where none actually occured.
If one takes a view that the University of Sydney's estimates are accurate, there is a small chance that the megafauna was farmed by humans. If humans were farming the Megafauna, they could have preserved them at Cuddle Springs long after they had been hunted to extinction around the rest of Australia.
The now extinct Diprotodon may have been suitable for animal husbandry. Weighing 32 times as much as a Red Kangaroo, it could have been enclosed in a pen and humans could have fed on its blood, milk and flesh. The Genyornis was another. A flightless bird four times larger than an Emu, it could have been enclosed in a pens and humans could have fed on its eggs and flesh.
There is some evidence of farming. An unusual feature of the dig at Cuddle Springs is that the Diprotodon is one of the few animals that was associated with human butchering tools. If the humans were merely hunter gatherers, many of the smaller animals should also also have lived alongside them and should have also been associated with butchering tools. The fact that the butchering tools have only been associated with the larger animals suggests that the humans lived off the larger animals.
Grinding stones, which are typically found in agricultural societies, are the only direct evidence of farming at Cuddle Springs. The presence of 30,000-year-old grinding stones at Cuddle Springs is quite unusual because they predate all other grinding stones around the world by 20,000 years. Hunter gatherers just don't use grinding stones.
*At present, no researchers argue that the humans that existed at Cuddle Springs were anything other than hunter gatherers.
Dissenting views
The theory of human-induced climate change proposed by Dr John Magee and Dr Michael Gagana is not universally accepted. Other scientists propose some alternative theories.
Natural climate change was the cause of Megafauna extinction
In 1998 David Bowman, an ecology expert from Charles Darwin University, argued that humans did not have the population density or the technology to efficiently wipe out megafauna. According to Bowman:
"It should be remembered that it becomes increasingly difficult to kill off a species as their population is reduced to low levels because of the extra hunting effort required to find the last remaining animals." (2)
While Bowman was correct in his assertion that a decline in prey numbers would necessitate more work on behalf of the hunters, common sense would also stipulate that as numbers decline, a species' genetic diversity declines with it. Whether the last animal dies as a result of a spear or disease is irrelevant because it was over hunting the caused population decline. Certainly humans managed to hunt the Tasmanian Tiger into extinction even though population decline required more effort to hunt them.
As an alternative to the over-hunting theory, Bowman proposed that the megafauna were wiped out by climactic changes. In Bowman's opinion, these climate changes had nothing to do with human action. To the contrary, human action limited the severity of climate change. According to Bowman:
"They intervened and they changed the habitat balance with their fire management practices and, in doing so conserved some habitats, such as rainforest, that might otherwise have been lost during the extreme aridity that characterised the end of the last ice-age some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago." (2)
Like his theory that a decline in population would somehow save a species, Bowman's theory that burning forests somehow preserved them was also on the silly side. By Bowman's logic, people today should counter the threat of global-warming-induced drought by investing in some flame throwers. Fire does not help ecosystems. It does not magically infuse water or nutrients. The explosion of greenery sometimes seen after a fire is simply a case of plant species using weakness in the ecosystem as the best time to push for individual dominance.
A final problem with Bowman's theory is that almost all the biggest animals appear to have gone extinct well before the ice age reached its maximum, and at least 20,000 years before the megafauna from nth America went extinct. If the climate change was a global phenomenon, megafauna extinction around the world should have happened at a similar time. The Australian extinctions were before other countries.
University of Queensland PhD researcher Gilbert Price is another who supports the climate change theory of megafauna extinction. Price studied a 10-metre-deep section of creek bed in the Darling Downs region in Queensland's southeast. He found evidence of a very severe drought around 40-50,000 years ago, and megafauna dying, but no evidence of humans. According to Price,
"The research found no evidence of humans being involved in the accumulation of fossils in the catchment at the time of deposition, but is perfectly consistent with their decline being caused by increasing aridity...So it's most likely that Australia's giant kangaroos and other megafauna in this area were driven to extinction by the hands of Mother Nature." (4)
Price's research was useful in that it showed that there was very severe climate change 40-50,000 years ago in the Darling Down's region. It was not very useful in explaining megafauna extinction. Fossils only form when a dead animal is buried and the body is cut off from oxygen and water. Generally, when humans kill an animal, they do not bury the remains so few fossils form. Consequently, it would not be expected to find evidence of humans killing megafauna unless the region has some kind of mud slides that buried bodies.
Even if humans were not killing megafauna in Darling Downs, just because an animal is dying in a drought in one part of a country doesn't mean humans aren't hunting them in another. I.e, just because Kangaroos die in a drought in Victoria doesn't mean people aren't shooting them in Western Australia, or hunting them in areas where they could have potentially survived a drought. Price was trying to make his research appear more significant than it was. All that his research indicated was that there was climatic change in the Darling Downs region 40-50,000 years ago. His research didn’t show the cause of that climate change or what humans did during the climate change.
Hunting was the cause of megafauna extinction
Flinders University palaeontologist Gavin Prideaux has argued that the megafauna were hunted by humans. According to Prideaux:
"Our evidence show that the Naracoorte giants perished under climatic conditions similar to those under which they previously thrived, which strongly implicates humans in their extinction...the real issue now is trying to resolve whether it was hunting or whether it was landscape destruction through burning ... and a bit of both is more likely." (3)
Prideaux's view doesn't seem to incorporate research from the ANU showing human-induced climate change. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to incorporate some research showing a relationship between climate change and megafauna extinction. According to the ANU's Dr John Magee and Dr Michael Gagan:
"Neither over-hunting nor human-induced diseases, the two most widely cited alternative agents for a human-caused extinction event in Australia, would result in the dramatic changes at the base of the food web documented by our datasets,...the reduction of plant diversity, however it came about, would have led to the extinction of specialized herbivores and indirectly to the extinction of their non-human predators." (1)
Misterys of Australia
Misterys in Australia
*Yowies- Like the Nth American big foot, the yowie emits a vile odour and screams offensively. Numerous sightings of Yowies have turned out to be escaped mental patients or hermits in jungle attire.
*Lost Prime Minister - In 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia went for a swim at the beach and was never seen again. Theories about his disappearance include kidnapping by a Russian submarine, eaten by a shark or being carried away by the tide.
*Bunyips - Bunyips haunt rivers, swamps, creeks and billabongs. Their main goal in life is to cause nocturnal terror by eating people or animals in their vicinity. They are renowned for their terrifying bellowing cries in the night and have been known to frighten Aborigines to the point where they would not approach any water source where a Bunyip might be waiting to devour them. Some scientists believe the Bunyip was a real animal, the diprotodon, extinct for some 20,000 years.
*Megafauna - 20-30 thousand years ago, Australia was home to Megafauna; giant species of marsupials including a wombat the size of a rhino, meat eating kangaroos, kangaroos three meat tall and lizards 7 meters long. It is not known exactly what happened to them. One theory is that were hunted to extinction by Aborigines or that the Aborigines use of fire destroyed their habitat. Another theory is their habitat was destroyed by the progressive drying of Australia.
*The Bradshaws - The Australian Kimberley is home to a mysterious form of rock art known as the Bradshaws. The art is dispersed in around 100 000 sites spread over 50 000 sq. km. Although the art's pigment can't be dated, a fossilised wasp nest covering one of the paintings has been dated at 17,000 + years old. This makes the art at least four times older than the pyramids.
The Bradshaws depict people with straight hair and poney tails. One painting even depicts a boat, with a rudder, and 29 people on board. Unlike other Aboriginal art, it is not known what purpose the Bradshaw paintings served. Graham Walsh, the foremost expert on them, has suggested that they might be a form of iconography(picture writing) painted by a now extinct Asiastic race.
*Marree man - In 1998, a huge engraving of a Aboriginal warrior appeared in the Australian outback. It was 4km long, held a throwing stick, was bearded and had a penis which was estimated to be 200m in length. The markings appeared to have been made by a tractor pulling some sort of plough which created furrows 10m wide in the difficult terrain. To this day, the artist is a mystery.
*Phar lap - Phar Lap was Australia's greatest race horse winning 37 of his 51 starts. After handicappers saddled him with enough weight to stop a train, his owner took him overseas to race in America. He easily won his first race but then died in mysterious circumstances.
* Mungo man - In 1974, scientists discovered the Mungo man - a primate who was ritually buried 40-60,000 years ago with his hands covering his penis. ANU's John Curtin School of Medical Research found that the skeleton's genetic material contained a small section of mitochondrial DNA. It was analysed and compared to the genetic material from nearly 3,500 people; including Neanderthals, Asians, ancient Aborigines, and present-day Aborigines. It was found that Mungo Man's DNA lacked a gene that was common to all the other samples. Consequently, unlike every other known person on the planet, or unearthed skeleton, Mungo man can not be traced to humans that left Africa any time in the last 200,000 years. Mungo Man's unique DNA has been used to challenge the 'out of Africa' theory of human evolution.
*Lost Prime Minister - In 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia went for a swim at the beach and was never seen again. Theories about his disappearance include kidnapping by a Russian submarine, eaten by a shark or being carried away by the tide.
*Bunyips - Bunyips haunt rivers, swamps, creeks and billabongs. Their main goal in life is to cause nocturnal terror by eating people or animals in their vicinity. They are renowned for their terrifying bellowing cries in the night and have been known to frighten Aborigines to the point where they would not approach any water source where a Bunyip might be waiting to devour them. Some scientists believe the Bunyip was a real animal, the diprotodon, extinct for some 20,000 years.
*Megafauna - 20-30 thousand years ago, Australia was home to Megafauna; giant species of marsupials including a wombat the size of a rhino, meat eating kangaroos, kangaroos three meat tall and lizards 7 meters long. It is not known exactly what happened to them. One theory is that were hunted to extinction by Aborigines or that the Aborigines use of fire destroyed their habitat. Another theory is their habitat was destroyed by the progressive drying of Australia.
*The Bradshaws - The Australian Kimberley is home to a mysterious form of rock art known as the Bradshaws. The art is dispersed in around 100 000 sites spread over 50 000 sq. km. Although the art's pigment can't be dated, a fossilised wasp nest covering one of the paintings has been dated at 17,000 + years old. This makes the art at least four times older than the pyramids.
The Bradshaws depict people with straight hair and poney tails. One painting even depicts a boat, with a rudder, and 29 people on board. Unlike other Aboriginal art, it is not known what purpose the Bradshaw paintings served. Graham Walsh, the foremost expert on them, has suggested that they might be a form of iconography(picture writing) painted by a now extinct Asiastic race.
*Marree man - In 1998, a huge engraving of a Aboriginal warrior appeared in the Australian outback. It was 4km long, held a throwing stick, was bearded and had a penis which was estimated to be 200m in length. The markings appeared to have been made by a tractor pulling some sort of plough which created furrows 10m wide in the difficult terrain. To this day, the artist is a mystery.
*Phar lap - Phar Lap was Australia's greatest race horse winning 37 of his 51 starts. After handicappers saddled him with enough weight to stop a train, his owner took him overseas to race in America. He easily won his first race but then died in mysterious circumstances.
* Mungo man - In 1974, scientists discovered the Mungo man - a primate who was ritually buried 40-60,000 years ago with his hands covering his penis. ANU's John Curtin School of Medical Research found that the skeleton's genetic material contained a small section of mitochondrial DNA. It was analysed and compared to the genetic material from nearly 3,500 people; including Neanderthals, Asians, ancient Aborigines, and present-day Aborigines. It was found that Mungo Man's DNA lacked a gene that was common to all the other samples. Consequently, unlike every other known person on the planet, or unearthed skeleton, Mungo man can not be traced to humans that left Africa any time in the last 200,000 years. Mungo Man's unique DNA has been used to challenge the 'out of Africa' theory of human evolution.
Natural Enviorenment
Natural Environment
*The Australian Lyre Bird is the world's best imitator; able to mimic the calls of 15 different species of birds in their locality and string the calls into a melody. Also been known to mimic the sound mobile phones.
*The echidna is such a unique animal that it is classified in a special class of mammals known as monotremes, which it shares only with the platypus. The echidna lays eggs like a duck but suckles its young in a pouch like a kangaroo. For no apparent reason, it may decide to conserve energy by dropping its body temperature to 4 degrees and remain at that temperature from 4 to 120 days. Lab experiments have shown that the echidna is more intelligent that a cat and it has been seen using its spikes, feet and beaks to climb up crevices like a mountaineer edging up a rock chimney.
*Purple wallaby - The Purple-neck Rock Wallaby [Petrogale Purpureicollis], inhabits the Mt Isa region in Northwest Queensland. The Wallaby secretes a dye that transforms its face and neck into colours ranging from light pink to bright purple.
*The Fierce Snake or Inland Taipan has the most toxic venom of any snake. Maximum yield recorded (for one bite) is 110mg. That would probably be enough to kill over 100 people or 250,000 mice.
*The Wombat deposits square poos on logs, rocks and even upright sticks that it uses tomark its territory.
*A 10kg Tasmanian Devil is able to exert the same biting pressure as a 40kg dog. It can also eat almost a third of its body weight in a single feeding.
*Australia is the smallest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent in the world. It is the only country which is also a whole continent.
*Over 90% of Australia is dry, flat and arid. Almost three-quarters of the land cannot support agriculture in any form.
*A baby kangaroo at the time of its birth measures 2 centimetres.
*Kangaroos need very little water to survive and are capable of going for months without drinking at all. When they do need water, they dig 'wells' for themselves; frequently going as deep as three or four feet. These 'kangaroo pits' are a common source of water for other animals living in the kangaroo's environment.
*A kangaroo being chased by a dog may jump into a dam. If the dog gives chase, the kangaroo may turn towards the dog, then use its paws to push the dogs head underwater in order to drown it.
*Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
*A monotreme is a animal that lays eggs and suckles its young. The world's only monotremes are the platypus and the echidna.
*The male platypus has a poisonous spine that can kill a dog and inflict immense pain on a human.
*When a specimen of the platypus was first sent to England, it was believed the Australians had played a joke by sewing the bill of a duck onto a rat.
*Box Jelly fish - The box jellyfish is considered the world's most venomous marine creature. The box jellyfish has killed more people in Australia than stonefish, sharks and crocodiles combined.
*The Sydney Funnelweb spider is considered the world's most deadly spider. It is the only spider that has killed people in less than 2 hours. Its fangs are powerful enough to bite through gloves and fingernails. The only animals without immunity to the funnelweb's venom are humans and monkeys.
*Lung fish - Queensland is home to lung fish, a living fossil from the Triassic period 350 million years ago.
.
*The Australian Lyre Bird is the world's best imitator; able to mimic the calls of 15 different species of birds in their locality and string the calls into a melody. Also been known to mimic the sound mobile phones.
*The echidna is such a unique animal that it is classified in a special class of mammals known as monotremes, which it shares only with the platypus. The echidna lays eggs like a duck but suckles its young in a pouch like a kangaroo. For no apparent reason, it may decide to conserve energy by dropping its body temperature to 4 degrees and remain at that temperature from 4 to 120 days. Lab experiments have shown that the echidna is more intelligent that a cat and it has been seen using its spikes, feet and beaks to climb up crevices like a mountaineer edging up a rock chimney.
*Purple wallaby - The Purple-neck Rock Wallaby [Petrogale Purpureicollis], inhabits the Mt Isa region in Northwest Queensland. The Wallaby secretes a dye that transforms its face and neck into colours ranging from light pink to bright purple.
*The Fierce Snake or Inland Taipan has the most toxic venom of any snake. Maximum yield recorded (for one bite) is 110mg. That would probably be enough to kill over 100 people or 250,000 mice.
*The Wombat deposits square poos on logs, rocks and even upright sticks that it uses tomark its territory.
*A 10kg Tasmanian Devil is able to exert the same biting pressure as a 40kg dog. It can also eat almost a third of its body weight in a single feeding.
*Australia is the smallest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent in the world. It is the only country which is also a whole continent.
*Over 90% of Australia is dry, flat and arid. Almost three-quarters of the land cannot support agriculture in any form.
*A baby kangaroo at the time of its birth measures 2 centimetres.
*Kangaroos need very little water to survive and are capable of going for months without drinking at all. When they do need water, they dig 'wells' for themselves; frequently going as deep as three or four feet. These 'kangaroo pits' are a common source of water for other animals living in the kangaroo's environment.
*A kangaroo being chased by a dog may jump into a dam. If the dog gives chase, the kangaroo may turn towards the dog, then use its paws to push the dogs head underwater in order to drown it.
*Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
*A monotreme is a animal that lays eggs and suckles its young. The world's only monotremes are the platypus and the echidna.
*The male platypus has a poisonous spine that can kill a dog and inflict immense pain on a human.
*When a specimen of the platypus was first sent to England, it was believed the Australians had played a joke by sewing the bill of a duck onto a rat.
*Box Jelly fish - The box jellyfish is considered the world's most venomous marine creature. The box jellyfish has killed more people in Australia than stonefish, sharks and crocodiles combined.
*The Sydney Funnelweb spider is considered the world's most deadly spider. It is the only spider that has killed people in less than 2 hours. Its fangs are powerful enough to bite through gloves and fingernails. The only animals without immunity to the funnelweb's venom are humans and monkeys.
*Lung fish - Queensland is home to lung fish, a living fossil from the Triassic period 350 million years ago.
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Australia Facts
Australia - just the facts
In land area, Australia is the sixth largest nation after Russia, Canada, China, the United States of America and Brazil. It has, however, a relatively small population. Australia is the only nation to govern an entire continent and its outlying islands. The mainland is the largest island and the smallest, flattest continent on Earth. It lies between 10° and 39° South latitude. The highest point on the mainland, Mount Kosciuszko, is only 2228 metres. Apart from Antarctica, Australia is the driest continent. Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Its interior has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world and about three-quarters of the land is arid or semi-arid. Its fertile areas are well-watered, however, and these are used very effectively to help feed the world. Sheep and cattle graze in dry country, but care must be taken with the soil. Some grazing land became desert when the long cycles that influence rainfall in Australia turned to drought. The Australian federation consists of six States and two Territories. Most inland borders follow lines of longitude and latitude. The largest State, Western Australia, is about the same size as Australia in brief
Australia is an independent Western democracy with a population of more than 20 million. It is one of the world’s most urbanised countries, with about 70 per cent of the population living in the 10 largest cities. Most of the population is concentrated along the eastern seaboard and the south-eastern corner of the continent. Australia’s lifestyle reflects its mainly Western origins moreWestern Europe.
In land area, Australia is the sixth largest nation after Russia, Canada, China, the United States of America and Brazil. It has, however, a relatively small population. Australia is the only nation to govern an entire continent and its outlying islands. The mainland is the largest island and the smallest, flattest continent on Earth. It lies between 10° and 39° South latitude. The highest point on the mainland, Mount Kosciuszko, is only 2228 metres. Apart from Antarctica, Australia is the driest continent. Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Its interior has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world and about three-quarters of the land is arid or semi-arid. Its fertile areas are well-watered, however, and these are used very effectively to help feed the world. Sheep and cattle graze in dry country, but care must be taken with the soil. Some grazing land became desert when the long cycles that influence rainfall in Australia turned to drought. The Australian federation consists of six States and two Territories. Most inland borders follow lines of longitude and latitude. The largest State, Western Australia, is about the same size as Australia in brief
Australia is an independent Western democracy with a population of more than 20 million. It is one of the world’s most urbanised countries, with about 70 per cent of the population living in the 10 largest cities. Most of the population is concentrated along the eastern seaboard and the south-eastern corner of the continent. Australia’s lifestyle reflects its mainly Western origins moreWestern Europe.
Australia facts directory
Queensland facts - New South Wales facts
Australian Capital Territory facts
Victoria facts - Tasmania facts - South Australia facts
Western Australia facts - Northern Territory facts
Queensland facts - New South Wales facts
Australian Capital Territory facts
Victoria facts - Tasmania facts - South Australia facts
Western Australia facts - Northern Territory facts
Australia is the Worlds Largest Exporter of:
Coal - Wool - Alumina - Diamonds - Sheep - Lead
Refined zinc ores - Mineral sands - Other Exports Include:
Veal - Lamb - Sugar - Nickel - Beef - Mutton - Cereals - Iron Ore
Coal - Wool - Alumina - Diamonds - Sheep - Lead
Refined zinc ores - Mineral sands - Other Exports Include:
Veal - Lamb - Sugar - Nickel - Beef - Mutton - Cereals - Iron Ore
Principal Trading Partners Include:
Japan, USA and EC member states
Japan, USA and EC member states
Sky Mistery Over Australia and Cultlefish in Australia Sea
Mystery Over Australia Credit & Copyright: Ray PalmerExplanation: Place your cursor on this stunning view through dark skies over western Australia to highlight wonders of the southern Milky Way -- including the famous Southern Cross, the dark Coal Sack Nebula, and bright reddish emission regions surrounding massive star Eta Carinae. Recorded Tuesday at about 2 am, the thirty minute long color film exposure also captured a bright but mysterious object that moved slowly across the sky for over an hour. Widely seen, the object began as a small point and expanded as it tracked toward the North (left), resulting in a comet-like appearance in this picture. What was it? Reports are now identifying the mystery glow with a plume from the explosion of a malfunctioned Russian rocket stage partially filled with fuel. The rocket stage was marooned in Earth orbit after a failed communication satellite launch almost a year ago on February 28, 2006. A substantial amount of debris from the breakup can be tracked
Australia - UNESCO World Heritage List
Australia - UNESCO
Properties inscribed on the World Heritage List Cultural
Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens (2004)
Sydney Opera House (2007) Natural
Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh / Naracoorte) (1994)
Fraser Island (1992)
Gondwana Rainforests of Australia (1986)
Great Barrier Reef (1981)
Greater Blue Mountains Area (2000)
Heard and McDonald Islands (1997)
Lord Howe Island Group (1982)
Macquarie Island (1997)
Purnululu National Park (2003)
Shark Bay, Western Australia (1991)
Wet Tropics of Queensland (1988) Mixed
Kakadu National Park (1981)
Tasmanian Wilderness (1982)
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (1987)
Willandra Lakes Region (1981)
Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens (2004)
Sydney Opera House (2007) Natural
Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh / Naracoorte) (1994)
Fraser Island (1992)
Gondwana Rainforests of Australia (1986)
Great Barrier Reef (1981)
Greater Blue Mountains Area (2000)
Heard and McDonald Islands (1997)
Lord Howe Island Group (1982)
Macquarie Island (1997)
Purnululu National Park (2003)
Shark Bay, Western Australia (1991)
Wet Tropics of Queensland (1988) Mixed
Kakadu National Park (1981)
Tasmanian Wilderness (1982)
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (1987)
Willandra Lakes Region (1981)
Australia Continent
Australia (pronounced /əsˈtreɪljə, ɒs-/[7], or formally /ɔːˈstreɪliə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland which is the world's smallest continent (also largest island)[8], the major island of Tasmania, and numerous other islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.N4 Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east and New Zealand to the south-east. For around 40,000 years before European settlement commenced in the late 18th century, the Australian mainland and Tasmania were inhabited by around 250 individual nations[9] of indigenous Australians.[10] After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north, and European discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606,[11] the eastern half of Australia was claimed by the British in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales, founded on 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in the following years; the continent was explored, and during the 19th century another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were established. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies became a federation, and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. Since Federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and remains a Commonwealth realm. The population is just over 21.7 million, with approximately 60% concentrated in and around the mainland state capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Darwin. The nation's capital city is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
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