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The desert tortoise is the official state reptile in California and Nevada. [6] The desert tortoise lives about 50 to 80 years; [7] it grows slowly and generally has a low reproductive rate. It spends most of its time in burrows, rock shelters, and pallets to regulate body temperature and reduce water loss.
Oceania is generally considered the least decolonized region in the world. In his 1993 book France and the South Pacific since 1940, Robert Aldrich commented: . With the ending of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands became a 'commonwealth' of the United States, and the new republics of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia signed ...
The origin of Melanesians is generally associated with the first settlement of Australasia by a lineage dubbed 'Australasians' or 'Australo-Papuans' during the Initial Upper Paleolithic, which is "ascribed to a population movement with uniform genetic features and material culture" (Ancient East Eurasians), and sharing deep ancestry with modern East Asian peoples and other Asia-Pacific groups.
Wooden carvings in the shape of hawks, ancient gods, serpents and turtles are also popular. The Grand Huts, also known as grande case (chef's hut), are decorated with the filial of fleche faitiere representing the ancestral spirits, symbolic of transition between the world of the dead and the world of the living. [52]
A marsupial lion skeleton in the Naracoorte Caves, South Australia. The term Australian megafauna refers to the megafauna in Australia [1] during the Pleistocene Epoch.Most of these species became extinct during the latter half of the Pleistocene, and the roles of human and climatic factors in their extinction are contested.
Meiolania is an extinct genus of meiolaniid stem-turtle native to Australasia throughout much of the Cenozoic. Meiolania was a large turtle, with the shell alone ranging from 0.7–2 m (2 ft 4 in – 6 ft 7 in) in length.
Meiolaniidae is an extinct family of large, probably herbivorous stem-group turtles with heavily armored heads and clubbed tails known from South America and Australasia. Though once believed to be cryptodires , they are not closely related to any living species of turtle, and lie outside crown group Testudines , having diverged from them ...
The largest known turtle was Archelon ischyros, a Late Cretaceous sea turtle up to 4.5 m (15 ft) long, 5.25 m (17 ft) wide between the tips of the front flippers, and estimated to have weighed over 2,200 kg (4,900 lb). [10]