What is so unique about Australia's animals?

Question

I know they're unique cuz they've been cut off from the rest of the world, blah blah blah. But what exactly is so unique about them??

ps. try not to describe just one particular animal. i mean them as a whole.

thanks

Answer 1

When Australia drifted far north and broke away from Gondwanaland, many of the animals got isolated from the rest of the world which were used to the colder climate adapted to the hot weather we now have.

They aren't found anywhere in the world - even a platypus' look made other countries thought it was a hoax that it was just pieces of different animals stitched together as there are no other animals that have a bill like that and can live on both land and water.

Answer 2

2 different mammals (echidna and platypus) that lay eggs!  That's pretty unique.

We have some of the prettiest and most striking birds in the world.

There's no large predatory animals - except maybe dingoes and the tassie devil.

We've got a massive range of snakes and spiders - some the deadliest in the world.

We've got a poisonous octopus that's smaller than your hand (the blue-ringed octopus).

Answer 3

the unique thing about our animals is that they survive in this climate! a vast majority of the land here is totally uninhabitable by other living things, and yet they survive.

the animals just like the land is harsh. Not much can thrive in that sort of environment.

Answer 4

Apart from dingos (wild dogs), which are not really natives but came across the land bridge from Asia relatively recently, Australia has very few native placental land mammals none of which is larger than a rat.  

Our mammals are nearly all marsupials which are very different indeed from other mammals. Marsupials have very short gestation periods - only a very few weeks for even very large kangaroo species. The young are born in an almost embryonic state and are blind (I don't meant their eyes aren't open yet - the eyes are not even fully formed), hairless and only a cm or two in size. The young crawl through their mother's fur into a pouch where they latch onto a milk producing teat and remain in the pouch for many months until they are no longer embryos and are more fully developed.

Two of our animals, the platypus and echidna, are even stranger and are very primitive. They lay eggs but are  are mammals in that they suckle their young on milk after 'hatching'. They are the only monotremes in the world - monotreme means 'one opening (or o*****e)'. They mate, give birth, defecate and urinate through a single opening. The male platypus is also the only poisonous mammal in the world having a poisonous spur on each hind leg (no deaths from a platypus sting have even been recorded).

Answer 5

The mammals are truly unique because they are marsupials or monotremes, not placental mammals. The other animals are basically similar to their cousins in other countries.

Answer 6

they have developed features that help them adapt to the harsh climates in Australia and these are rarely found anywhere else.

Also Australia is known for having unique animals because there are so many that cant be found anywhere else but Australia. We have developed a reputation for it.

and they are just so different! for example a platypus, there is nothing else in the world that is even remotely simular to it.

hope this gives you a better understanding!

Answer 7

They're unique because they have qualities that other animals don't have.

Answer 8

They are unique because there is no other animal like them... what animal in the world looks like a kangaroo? a platypus? a koala??? there are none.