Why Are There So Many Unique Animals In Australia

The lack of dissimilarities and the occurrence of unique animal or plant assemblages in various parts of the world not just Australia may be evidence for a rapid resettlement in relatively recent.

Why are there so many unique animals in australia. About 50 million years ago australia became an island. Charles Darwin already answered it when he visited the Galapagos islands. 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.

Marsupials that originated in Gondwana. The answer is actually simple. So the animals that were already on the continent evolved in isolation into animals most.

Unique Wildlife in Australia and New Zealand. Why is Australian wildlife so unique. The platypus and two species of echidna are the worlds only egg-laying mammals so called monotremes.

Even more intriguing is that many of these plants and animals have very small distributions on the island something that is called micro-endemism. Australia and New Zealand are wonderlands filled with exotic animal species. Many of the plants like the animals.

The continent has so many marsupials it raises the question. 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. The continent of Australia has vast expenses of desert and semi-arid land in its interior sub-tropical rain forest in the Northeast.

So why does Australia have so many unusual animals. 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. Many of Australias animals are unique simply because Australia is a continent separate from other large land masses.