Portal:Australia/Featured article/Week 27, 2006

The fauna of Australia comprises a huge variety of unique animals; some 83% of mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of fish and insects and 93% of amphibians that inhabit the continent are endemic. This high level of endemism can be attributed to the continent's long geological isolation, tectonic stability, and the effects of an unusual pattern of climate change on the soil and flora over geological time. 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, mostly fill the ecological niches that are occupied by placental mammals elsewhere in the world. Australia is home to two of the five extant egg-laying monotremes, and has numerous venomous species, which include the Platypus, spiders, scorpions, octopuses, jellyfish, molluscs, stonefish, stingrays. Uniquely, Australia has more venomous than non-venomous species of snakes.