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Placental mammals. The dingo was the first placental mammal introduced to Australia by humans. Australia has indigenous placental mammals from two orders: the bats, order Chiroptera, represented by six families, and the mice and rats, order Rodentia, family Muridae. Bats and rodents are relatively recent arrivals to Australia.
Wildlife of Australia. A total of 386 species of mammals have been recorded in Australia and surrounding continental waters: 364 indigenous and 22 introduced. [1] The list includes 2 monotremes, 154 marsupials, 83 bats, 69 rodents (5 introduced), 10 pinnipeds, 2 terrestrial carnivorans (1 recent introduction, and 1 prehistoric introduction), 13 ...
A unique feature of Australia's fauna is the relative scarcity of native placental mammals. Consequently, the marsupials – a group of mammals that raise their young in a pouch, including the macropods, possums and dasyuromorphs – occupy many of the ecological niches placental animals occupy elsewhere in the world.
Echidna. Echidnas (/ ɪˈkɪdnəz /), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, [1] are quill-covered [2] monotremes (egg-laying mammals) belonging to the family Tachyglossidae / tækiˈɡlɒsɪdiː /, living in Australia and New Guinea. The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs and the only ...
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), [3] sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, [4] is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypic taxon of its family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus, though a number of related species ...
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. There are similarities between the prehistoric Australian megafauna and some mythical ...
Australia is home to two of the five extant species of monotremes and the majority of the world's marsupials (the remainder are from Papua New Guinea, eastern Indonesia and the Americas). The taxonomy is somewhat fluid; this list generally follows Menkhorst and Knight [1] and Van Dyck and Strahan, [2] with some input from the global list, which ...
The red kangaroo (Osphranter rufus [5]) is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, and the largest extant marsupial.It is found across mainland Australia, except for the more fertile areas, such as southern Western Australia, the eastern and southeastern coasts, and the rainforests along the northern coast.