Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
Australia’s long-term isolation has resulted in an unusually large number of endemic species such as the kangaroo. But seeing a mob of these marsupials in a snowstorm is somewhat surreal. Normally you’d expect to find them in the arid outback, yet in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales where temperatures can fall to -23˚C they are frequently seen – their thick fur protecting them from the worst of the cold.
In the mountains they’re safer from dingo attacks than on the warmer plains. These wild dogs are probably descended from animals brought over from New Guinea by humans making the voyage by canoe between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago – though some naturalists think the dingo’s ancestors might have trekked to Australia across a land bridge up to 18,000 years ago, when sea levels were lower.
For the dingos, kangaroo hunts demand agility and stamina. The dogs can run at a steady 30mph, while their prey bounds along at a slightly slower speed, with sudden bursts of up to 40mph. If the kangaroo slips or allows itself to be outflanked by other dogs, the hunt is soon over.
Other animals in Australasia have a less taxing technique for catching dinner. In the Roper River in northern Australia, crocodiles lie in the water, halfsubmerged in the 45˚C heat. Unlike their bigger saltwater cousins, these freshwater crocs are not man-eaters – but they are deadly to little red flying foxes. As the foxes, which are really a type of bat, swoop down in flocks of up to 20,000 to soak the fur on their breasts with water, which they will drink later, the crocodiles snap them up. The prey literally flies into those wide-open jaws, but the bats have no choice: in the dry season they have to take the risk or they will die of thirst.
Sometimes though, when bubbles appear on the surface of the water in Australia it isn’t a sign of crocodiles. The mysterious underwater bubble-blower might be a duckbilled platypus, a creature so bizarre ta w en Victorian scientists first saw a stuffed exhibit they assumed it was a taxidermist’s prank constructed from an otter’s feet with a beaver’s tail and, of course, a duck’s bill.
That bill has electrical receptors running along its edge, making it able to detect fish in the murkiest water. And it has poisonous glands linked to spurs on its back feet, making it one of the few venomous mammals. On top of that, it’s a mammal that lays eggs. No wonder the Victorians thought someone was playin an April Fool’s joke.
On the beach of the
Wet Tropics Rainforest in Queensland, you might be surprised to see fresh tracks that appear to have been made in the sand by a dinosaur. In fact, the footprints have been made by a cassowary, a colourful flightless bird that looks like a psychedelic turkey and stands up to 6ft tall. They are so shy that they run at the first sign of humans, and proved one of the camera crew’s most testing challenges.