Online Documentaries

Australia is a land mass unlike any other. The driest (inhabited) and flattest continent is also the most isolated, having spent the last 40 or so million years drifting alone in the Southern seas. During this time the wildlife has been left to develop largely without competition from other parts of the planet. Only bats and marine mammals would have breached these shores in early times, and more recently (but still some 5 million years ago) came the hopping mice. Elsewhere on the planet land masses were regularly joined and separated by the coming and passing of ice ages, and wildlife moved around on the land bridges these caused. Terra australis, however, remained apart from these other land masses and so the wildlife here was left to evolve into what we now see – a truly distinct and wonderful collection of creatures that is unlike anywhere else on Earth.

Australia today boasts 379 species of mammal, including 80% of the worlds marsupials and 2 out of the 3 monotremes, more than 750 species of birds (almost half of which are endemic), some 800 species of reptile (89% of which are endemic) and huge numbers of fish and arthropods. Australia’s lonely evolution has led to peculiarities within these species, such that we now have the ten deadliest snakes and the most poisonous spiders, egg laying mammals and the only bird in the world with armour.

Related Posts

1. Australia Marine World – Documentary
2. Planet Earth: Shallow Seas – Documentary
3. Planet Earth: Seasonal Forests – Documentary
4. Planet Earth : Jungles – Documentary
5. Planet Earth: Great Plains – Documentary

Armour, Arthropods, Deadliest Snakes, Earth Australia, Egg Laying Mammals, Hopping Mice, Land Bridges, Land Mass, Land Masses, Mammal, Marine Mammals, Marsupials, Million Years, Monotremes, Peculiarities, Poisonous Spiders, Reptile, Southern Seas, Species Of Birds, Terra Australis