The
Australian
Animals
Australia
has a big fauna. There are lots of animals that live only in
Australia. That’s because Australia was and is a big island. 83% of
mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of the freshwater fish and insects and
93% of the amphibians only live in Australia. Australia has
rainforests, deserts and other climatic zones so it can show a big
biodiversity. There are a lot of special animals like the marsupials,
monotremes and a lot of poisonous animals like stingrays. Another
special thing is that Australia is home to more poisonous snakes then
atoxic snakes. Very special is that Australia hasn’t had any camels
in the past. But then a lot of camels arrived with the white traders
and ran away. Now Australia is the home of more than 20.000 camels.
The most famous animal of Australia is the kangaroo. Young kangaroos
always want to go back into the bag of their mothers. So it’s very
easy for Aborigines or bushmen to catch them. Another famous animal is the koala. The name koala means “without
water” in the Aboriginal language because it doesn’t need much
water to survive. The water from the leaf of the eucalyptus tree the
koala always eats is enough for it.
The
Platypus
The
Platypus
(in German:
Schnabeltier)
is the only mammal, which is capable of laying eggs. Together with
the four kinds of echidna (Ameisenigel) it constitutes a very special
form of mammals: the monotremes.
The Platypus has got a streamlined and flat body. The tail
is also flat like a beavertail. The whole body of the Platypus is
covered with brown water-repellent pelt. Only the feet and the beak
are without pelt. The size of the Platypus is very small. It´s only
about 40 cm long, with tale about 55cm. A grown up platypus has got
no teeth. There is just a horn slab to grind the food. A younger
Platypus has got three teeth, but it loses them on the way to grow
up. The Platypus males have got a 15 cm long thorn which is full of
poison. They use it in the fight with other males for a female. But
usually they live alone. Only in the breeding season (july-october)
they look for a partner. Th most time of their lives they are
swimming in the water or they live in a den near the riverside.
Enemies of the Platypus are the Murray-codfish and other fish, the
carpet snake and raptors. A very special enemy is the rakali. It goes
into the den of a Platypus, eats the babies and stays there.
Mammalian=Säugetier,
to be capable of…=in der Lage sein zu…, monotremes= Kloakentiere,
streamlined=stromlinienförmig, repellent=abweisend, to grind=mahlen,
thorn=Stachel, den=Bau, breeding season= Paarungszeit,
codfish=Dorsch, carpet-snake=Teppichpython, raptor= Greifvogel,
rakali=Goldbauch-Schwimmratte,
Crocodiles
Crocodiles
are in the family of reptiles. The reptiles have lived for more than
310.0000.000 years on earth which makes them one of the
biggest/oldest animal species on earth. The Crocodiles mostly live
around wet areas like rivers, riverbanks or lakes. They are to 100%
carnivores (meat eaters), but sometimes they are eating their own
children too. Their body type is flat with very hard sheds (Schuppen)
so they can resist many attacks. A Crocodile is a large aquatic tetra
pod that lives throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas
and of course also in Australia. Lizards, snakes and crocodiles are
all scaled diapsida, but crocodiles are archosaurs, which means they
are genetically closer to birds and the family of dinosaurs.
Crocodylidae is classified as a biological family or subfamily. The
term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of
the order Crocodilia: which includes the crocodiles of Crocodylidae,
the alligators and caimans and the gharials, and the rest of
Crocodylomphora, which includes crocodile relatives and ancestors.
Crocodiles tend to congregate in freshwater habitats such as rivers,
lakes, wetlands and sometimes in brackish water. They feed mostly on
vertebrates - fish, reptiles, and mammals, and sometimes on
invertebrates.
