Wild Places and Open Spaces

We have now reached the unfortunate end of our Australian leg of our one year journey.

In four months, we have learned a great deal down here. The most unique part of being in Australia has definitely got to be its array of interesting animals.

If most people are like us, Australia conjures up imagaes of poisonous snakes, crocodiles, kangaroos, and platypus. Oz does have its fair share of the previously mentioned…but it is so much more!

I guess we’ll start with the myths and realities of snakes and reptiles.

We spent a lot of our time bushwalking and other than many tiger snake encounters in Tasmania, we never came across many snakes in the rest of Oz. Many of Australias snakes are highly venomous, but in most cases if they’re left alone and not trodden on, there is likely very little to worry about. They tend to just want to get out of the way – usually.

There are a vast array of other reptiles including the notorious crocodiles of the north. A lot of reptiles are easy to spot basking in the heat of the day. All of them are non-venomous and pose no threat to humans – except for the crocs. The croc is an animal Australians take heed of and warnings are abundant throughout tropical Australia.

One would be lucky to see a croc in the wild – if they are standing in the right place – and unlucky if one doesn’t follow a few simple rules: 1) Never camp near infested waters. Crocs will and do go a long way from water. 2) Never stand too close to a riverbank where you cannot see into the water clearly! Crocs can hide perfectly in 1.5ft of water. 3) Don’t swim in tropical waters near estuaries or river mouths. Crocs can be found 100kms up inland rivers!

Australia has some truly huge lizards! There are goannas (monitors) all over and some species rival the Komodo Dragon in size!

Australian mammals are truly unique, abundant and varied. There are three classes of mammals in existence and all present here: the placentals (which other than the bats are feral and/or introduced species); the monotremes (which are egg-laying mammals); and marsupials (which Australia has a plethora of!)

Placentals: the bats are indigenous to Australia. There are many species of bats (over sixty occur in Australia), but to us amateurs they all look similar except for the fruit munching flying foxes.These bats are enormous and plentiful, especially in the north-east.

The only other ‘Australian’ placental is the dingo, which is actually a wild dog introduced by the indonesians about 5000 years or so ago. Dingos are responsible for the demise or reduction of many native marsupials. Aussies have went to great lengths to try to contain dingos, although generally it’s to protect their livestock rather than threatened endemic animals.

The rest of the placental mammals in Australia are introduced and many have become thriving ferals. The most notorious being pigs, rabbits, foxes and cats. These animals have been a bane for endemic species. In most cases they compete with native species for food or eat them.

Our greatest lessons revolved around marsupials (pouched mammals). Before coming to Australia we would be hard pressed to name 5 marsupials, and I’d hazard to guess most people would only be sure of one marsupial for sure, and that would be the kangaroo. Try before reading on to see if you can name 5?!

Like everyone, we were familiar with the kangaroo – we thought… We were soon to learn that there are several macropods (big feet) in Australia, not to mention several species of kangaroo alone. We learned of wallabies (smaller than kangaroos), wallaroos (which need no explanation I believe), pademelons, tree kangaroos, bettongs and potoroos, which are all macropods and most containing several species. Excuse my taxonomy, but taxonomists can’t even seem to agree how to classify animals half the time.

Here’s a short list of other marsupials we’ve learned about, and on most occasions, have spotted. Eastern and Spotted-Tailed Quolls, Brown and Barred Bandicoots, Brush-Tailed and Ring-Tailed Possums, Dunnarts, Pygmy Possums, Sugar Gliders, Tasmanian Devils, Wombats, Koalas, Feather-Tailed Gliders, Antechinus, and hosts of others!

An added bonus for us in Australia was the abundance of incredibly beautiful birds. We had no idea of bird life in Australia, so it has been a terrific education. We identified over 160 birds! And that’s with a pair of broken binoculars! (they got busted when we dropped them on the pavement by accident…so now they have double vision…) I’m not going to list them all as not only would it be plain boring, but it would be darn meaningless. Suffice it to say a lot of the birds we have in cages in North America fly free here. Kookaburras are hilarious and we will mis them. Seeing the giant emus and cassowaries in the wild was like stepping back in time. If you are a birder, you won’t be disappointed with the sights and sounds of Australias bird life.

Australia is also infamous for some of its poisonous spiders. The funnelweb spider is the world’s most deadlyl spider, but unless you are a gardener, you probably won’t encounter one. The only ‘baddie’ to be concerned about is the red back spider, which are widespread and more likely to be encountered. They also pack a good whallup, but are unlikely to cause death. There are a lot of other interesting non-venomous’ish’ spiders, particularly notable are the very large Huntsmans. Although quite ominous, they are quite harmless.

We encountered many interesting insects (including huge termite mounds), but the only ones which caused us any real grief were the darn flies! They will drive anyone not used to them (which we aren’t) BONKERS.

Australia has enough moths and butterflies to keep the average lepidopterists interest. We were delighted with them, particularly in Queensland where the most spectacular are the Ulysees and Cairns Birdwing. Good luck photographing them though!

Australia is well noted for its amazing sealife. We swam with mammoth Manta Rays, lethal Bull Rays (responsible for Steve Irwin’s death), graceful Eagle Rays, Wobegong Sharks, Leopard Sharks; we encountered dolphins, seals, sealions, penguins and if you come at the right time of the year you’ll be treated to pods of migrating whales.

There are many interesting critters to be found in Oz tidal pools. We found many creatures we still haven’t figured out! Just be careful of poking around areas you can’t see, as you wouldn’t want to tangle with cone shells or a blue ring octopus. Both these creatures have lethal venom which can and have killed humans!

So, if you are into wildlife, come to Australia and discover a plethora of interesting animals!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.