why does australia have such unique animals plase help?

Answer 1

because Australia is isolataed from other countries the life forms here were able to evolve into very diverse species.

Answer 2

Perhaps it's because Australia and New Zealand have the proper climates to support such wildlife. They are in a pretty unique part of the world and all.

Answer 3

Australia is the largest Island in the world... Yes.! it is an Island.! It has good tropical habitat for animals... but at the same time Australia has several deserts... which could provide needs of some animals that needs warm environment.. In mid-year the climate change to cold... This is Ironic Right? which make it unique to adopt different types of species that fits its climate. And besides Australia is an environmental Friendly country and the goverment provides funds to support their endangered unique species... such as Koala, kangaroo, wombat, tasmanian Devil, Ostritch, jurasic aged crocodiles and deadly snakes that can kill within 10 minutes.!

Answer 4

Ok I'm from Australia and have no idea what your talking about, what do you mean by unique animals??, we have all the animals that you all have, with the exception of Koalas and Kangaroos, alot of Americans think that kangaroos and koalas roam the streets, when in facts that it'nt true, the only place you will find them is in the bush and the country. The only place I've seen them is at the Zoo.

Answer 5

Every place has distinct animals. Animals that have diverged over time from their immediate ancestors and are found no where else. However Australia has the only surviving examples of the ORDER Monotremata. There are other places where marsupials and flightless birds exists but only in Australia are there monotremes. Marsupials (Marsupialia) and monotremes (Monotremata) are two of the three extant mammalian lineages (the other being that of the placentals). The three orders once existed across all of southern Gondwana but except for four Australian species the monotremes are extinct.
What is to be noted is that Australia has examples of many species that have become extinct in other parts of the world. These are known as endemic species. Endemic means exclusively native to the plant and animal life of a region, the biota, of a specific place. Compared with other countries, Australia not only has a large number of endemic species, but these also form a high percentage of the total known endemic families. Endemism occurs at the taxonomic level of family & order in Australia, with six mammal, about four bird, eight fish, and 14 families of flowering plants endemic to Australia as well as numerous families of invertebrates and four monotremes.
The taxonomy is Domain-Kingdom- Phylum-Class- Order-Family- Genus-Species
The real question is why are they so stable in Australia? Is the isolation adequate to explain the intricate co-evolution found there?
Relict species are examples of lineages that have survived since Pangaean and Gondwanan times also called 'living fossils'. These remain relatively unchanged from a previous age. While some species continue existing they must change with the demands of their environment. For example ratite, or flightless birds, which include the emu and ostrich, are believed to have Gondwanan origins as they are found on most southern continents, including Africa, Australia and South America but are distinct from one another and different from their ancestor. Australia though has many relict species. This is possibly due to the geologic stability of the Australian landmass.
"For example, Australia has outstanding examples of stromatolites, structures formed by microbial mats of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) and other microorganisms. The oldest known stromatolites are about 3500 million-year-old fossils and were discovered near the mining centre of North Pole in the Pilbara, Western Australia. Actively growing stromatolites can be found at Shark Bay, Western Australia, where one type of cyanobacterium, widespread in the microbial mats, is thought to be a direct descendant of forms that flourished 1900 million years ago. It represents one of the longest continual biological lineages known." quoted from Josephine Mummery and Neal Hardy of Australian Dept. of Env. & Water Res. http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper2/index.html
The land's stability and isolation combined may be the key to explaining the relative stability of the Australian Taxonomy.
Geological stability has resulted in only relatively minor change to Australia's landscapes over extremely long periods of time. Australia is unique in exhibiting this stability at a continental scale. In contrast, most other continents have been subject to large-scale geological processes that have resulted in extensive change, including the obliteration of records of early landscapes and biota.

Answer 6

When animals are stuck on an island, they can only breed with one another. They don't change/evolve the same as animals on the "mainland." Since they can't breed with animals on different continents, their genes are kept within the island and eventually they look different than other animals on different continents.

Answer 7

I am stumped. Perhaps it is all Bush's fault, seems they blame him for everything else. Bull dog ants, Kangaroos, Blue ringed Octipi, Tasmanian Devils, Funnel web Spiders, salt water crocs, Great White Sharks, and Steve Irwin gets it from a stingray, go figure.

Answer 8

Because during continental drift and the seperation of Pangea, these animals got stuck on this island. They evolved in a way completely different from the rest of the animals in the world. Same with Madagascar in Africa.

Answer 9

Their country was isloated from the others for the longest