A detailed description of the vertebrate fauna of Australia

1. A Zoogeographical region with no land connection
with any other region

2. Australian Region
New Zealand
and Pacific
Islands not
included
Include Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, a few
smaller islands of Malay Archipelago

4. Australian Region: Climate
 Partly Tropical and
Partly South-Temperate
 Northern part (North
Australia and New
Guinea)…Lies in tropics
with high summer
temperature sand mainly
Rain forest (called Scrub
locally in Queensland).
 Interior part…….mostly
hot but dry
 Southern
part………Mainly
Temperate

5. Australian Region: Climate
 New Guinea:
Tropical; mostly
covered with rain
forest
 Areas of grassland
and series of
altitudinal
vegetations on the
mts.
 South coast: areas
of open eucalyptus
woods

6. Australian Region: Climate
 Southern part…
Mainly Temperate
 Eastern and
South-eastern part
well watered with
open eucalyptus
woods and some
wetter, denser
forest on the
mountains.

7. Australian Region: Climate
 Southwestern
…moderately wet
but cut off by
deserts from the
east. There are
some fine forests
of big trees in the
southwest.
 Tasmania.. ..Cool
Temperate, and is
partly wet and
forested.

9. Australian Region: Mammals
 Most striking characteristics……its Paucity…..but what
it lacks in variety and no. of families, it make up in the
uniqueness of many.
 Apart from Bats, only 9 families of mammals…8 of
these are unique.
 Recent Introductions by Man from
Palearctic………..Rabbits, Foxes, Rats, Mice.
 Other introductions…..
dates back to prehistoric times…..
Dingo Dog and Pigs.
Dingo Dog

10. Australian: Mammals
 Nine families
 Only one placental mammal fam.
 Six Marsupials fam.
 Two Monotremes fam.

11. Australian: Placental Mammals
 Only one placental mammal, the murid mouse fam.
 Wide range in old world but australian murids are of
distinct genera
 Hydromyinae-water rats (False water rats-lack of
webbing on the feet), an exclusive subfam.
Smoky mouse
Water Rat (Xeromysmyoides)
Plains mouse

12. Australian: Marsupial Mammals
 Dominant mammal fauna- Marsupials
 Six excl. fam.- none of which occur in New World
(where other living marsupials lives)
 In presence of a few placental (none of them
carnivores)- marsupials become diverse and have
taken to ways of life which in other parts of the world
are followed by placentals.
 There is a striking parallelism in superficial structures
between some Australian mammals and their
counterparts in other regions.

13. Parallel Radiation of Marsupials:
Convergent Evolution

14. Resemblance
Paddle -shaped feet and strongly
clawed fingers
In all superficial aspects
In
all superficial aspects
In all superficial aspects
In all superficial aspects
In all superficial aspects
Similar predatory life
Fam. Notoryctidae
Extinct
Opossums
Squirrel

15. Placental Mammals Australian Mammals
(Marsupials)
Resemblance
Rabbits and insectivores Fam. Peramelidae
(Bandicoots, Bilbys)
In all superficial aspects
Large Rodents Phascolomidae,
Wombats
(Vombatus
ursinus)
In all superficial aspects
Ungulates Kangaroos and Wallabies Their herbivorous diet
and speed of travel in
open country

16. Parallel radiation of Marsupials
 Not perfect
 No masupials bats, seals, or whales. Placental
representatives of these orders occupy the air and seas
of Australia
Australian Fur Seal Australian Fruit Bat/ Flying Fox

17. Australian-Monotreme Mammals
 Relationship with marsupials and placental v remote.
 May have had a separate origin from reptiles after
these had acquired hairs but had not yet lost their egg-laying
habits.
 Two Australian fam. Only living Monotremes (Excl.)
 Duckbilled Platypuses
 Echidnae or spiny- ant eaters
 Owe their survival to:
 their specialized ways of life
 the absence of placental carnivores

18. Australian-Monotreme Mammals
Echidnas/Spiny ant eater Duckbilled platypus
 Active ant eater
 Lay small leathery eggs
 Mother incubate eggs in a
small pouch
 The young are fed with milk
which seeps on to the fur
from special pores on the
underside of the mother
 Semiaquatic
 Lay small leathery eggs
 Mother incubate eggs by
curling around them
 The young are fed with milk
which seeps on to the fur
from special pores on the
underside of the mother

19. Australian Mammals-conclusion
 Only a few monotremes (Excl. subclass)
 Many marsupials (6 excl. fam.)
 Diverse rodents of fam. Muridae (O.W.)
 Fruit bats (warm O.W.)
 6 fam. of insectivorous bats (all occurring elsewhere)

21. Australian- Birds
 Does not equal mammals in peculiarity as vast
majority with a wide range
 Trogons, Kingfisher, Hawks and Cuckoos together with
pigeons and parrots (both of which reach their
greatest diversity there).
Trogons Kingfisher
Hawk Cuckoos

22. Australian- Birds
 Many Australian Warblers (Malurinae)
 Parrots-highly diverse with 3 excl. subfam.
 Cockatoos
 Lories
 Pygmy parrots
Cockatoos
Lories
Pygmy Parrot
Warblers

23. Australian- Birds
 Four bird fam. Shared
with Oriental Region
 Frogmouth
 Wood Swallow
 Flower peckers
 Megapodes
Frogmouth
Wood swallow
Megapodes
Flower peckers

24. Australian- Birds
 Some birds, which are abundant in O.R are not seen in
Australian region which include:
 Pheasants
 Finches
 Barbets
 Woodpeckers

25. Australian- Birds  Ten unique fam.
 Of which, two flightless
 Emus
 Cassowaries
 Honey suckers
 Lyrebirds
 Bower birds
 Legendary bird of
paradise /bird of sun
Cassowaries
Bower
bird Male
Honey Sucker
Bird of Paradise
Bower bird Female Lyre bird

26. Australian Birds- Conclusion
 Representatives of 58 fam on freshwater and land
 Of these, 48 fam more or less widely distributed, over
the world, or the tropics, or all or much of the Old
World.
 Proportion of Australian birds in exclusive fam. Is
larger than in any other continental faunal region
except the Neotropical

28. Australian -Reptiles
 Moderately varied with two excl. fam.
 Constricting pythons and biting tiger snakes abundant
Constricting
Python
Tiger snake

29. Australian -Reptiles
 Geckos, skinks, agamid lizards and varanid Komodo
Dragon- Varanus (warm O.W.),the largest of all lizards
present.
 Pygopodids excl.
 A Dibamus (O) in New guinea
Geckos
Skinks
Agamid Lizard
Pygopodids Lizard
Komodo Dragon
Dibamus

30. Australian -Reptiles
 Crocodiles in tropical parts of the region
 Three fam. of turtles, of which one is uinque-(Carettochelys,
excl. fam.) , one of which occurs in Oriental Region- a
trionychidae (soft shell turtle) , and one in South America-
Chelyid turtles (Side neck or Snake neck turtles)
 Turtles shared with Neotropical region belong to chelyid fam. of
side-necks. They have strikingly long necks and are aquatic.
Carettochelys, pig-nosed
turtle
Soft Shell turtle
Snake neck turtle

32. Australian -Amphibians
 Few, Australia being the only region where common
toads are absent.
 A few common frogs, hylid tree frogs (also found in
New world and Palearctic but absent from Oritental
region), leptodactylids (S.A. etc.), a few ranids (wide)
and brevicipitids (warm world, subfam. nearly excl.)
 No tailed amphibians

34. Australian -Fishes
 Freshwater fish fauna equally poor
 Third lung fish, Neoceratodus found in the rivers of
Queensland. It differ from other two lung fishes in the
more obvious development of its lobed fins.
 An Osteoglossid (O etc.)
 Peripheral fishes

36. Overview
 Poverty of freshwater fish, amphibian, and reptiles
 Uniqueness of mammals and birds
 A few frogs, turtles and marsupials resembles South
America
 Terrestrial reptiles, many birds and placental
mammals show close affinities with Oreintal Region.
 Little in common with Ethiopian though both have
lung fishes and side necks they don’t share the same
fam. Of either of these groups.