Now, normally I’d be completely against a big wildlife park in a major city, but I figure I don’t get all worked up about the Portland Zoo, and in fact I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Portland Zoo, so I figured I could forgive myself for going to Sydney Wildlife World (SWW). It’s located at Darling Harbour and is right next to the aquarium. I took a day off and went through Little Italy (aka Norton Street) where I got my 2GB of pictures burned onto a DVD. Then I decided that 2GB doesn’t last nearly long enough, so I bought myself an 8GB memory card… Hopefully it’ll take me a little longer to fill up. When you take pictures of every everyday object that you run across, including flowers, bugs, light switches (if you can call them that), etc, then 2GB is never going to get you anywhere. From Norton Street I took a bus through Balmain to the wharf and caught a ferry to Darling Harbour, one stop only! It’s a fabulous (but short) ferry ride, beautiful views of Harbour Bridge and The Rocks. At SWW there were very limited numbers of children, much to my delight. (No offence to those of you with kids – yours are all perfect.) So I got to walk around at my own pace and meet even more unique Australian creatures.
Here are some of my notes.
Cicadas (I do realize these are not uniquely Aussie, but they are everywhere – they especially like the greenery outside my window) are the loudest known insect and can be heard up to 400 meters away. The sound is from vibrating drum-like membranes on their abdomen.
An Australian tiger beetle is the fastest running insect, hitting top speeds of 2.5 meters per second. It doesn’t sound like much, but for their body size this would be the equivalent of a human runner approaching the speed of sound.
The Australian giant rhinoceros cockroach can weigh as much as a large mouse and grow to seven cm in length. It is the largest cockroach in the world.
The Sydney funnel web is the most dangerous spider in the world, but it is only the males that are lethal. The venom only affects people, not dogs or cats. Funnel-webs got their name from the silk tube with which they line their burrow. The Sydney funnel-web is one of the most venomous spiders in the world.
Australia is the land of reptiles. With a current count of around 840 species, there are more varieties of reptile in Australia than on any other continent. By comparison, the larger land mass of North America has only 280 reptile species, less than half the number of lizards alone in Australia, at 615 species. What’s more, 90% of Australia’s reptiles are found nowhere else on Earth.
They’re everywhere! Australia is home to the most highly venomous snakes in the world. It is also the only continent on which the venomous varieties outnumber the harmless ones. Although less than one third of the world’s snake species are venomous, they make up 65% of Australia’s snakes. They have spread across the continent to inhabit all environments and niches. However, only a handful are truly dangerous to man and even those tend to be shy snakes which avoid confrontation. Many are beneficial in that they eat small rodents which destroy crops and property. All snakes are protected by law in Australia.
The inland taipan is the most venomous snake in the world. A single bite can produce enough venom to kill 100 people (or 250,000 mice)! Fortunately, the inland taipan lives in remove areas and is very shy, so it is extremely rare for a human to be bitten. It feeds mainly on plague rats.
Australia has more than 770 species of birds, of which over 350 are found nowhere else in the world. When it comes to parrots alone, one sixth of all living species are Australian.
Australia is the only continent on which the number of mammals active by night is greater than the number that are active by day.
Over 80% of the continent is considered arid or semi-arid, making Australia the driest continent on Earth. The lack of water means food may be scarce in the red heart. Marsupials do well here because they have a slower ifestyle than other mammals and therefore require less food and water. Reptiles thrive here for the same reasons. One bizarre lizard, the thorny devil, collects dew overnight on large spines which cover its body. When enough moisture collects it flows between its scales towards the lizard’s mouth, giving it a drink. When times are hard, some kangaroos and wallabies are able to keep an embryo in suspended animation until the next good rain. When there is plenty of rain, a female kangaroo or wallaby may have two joeys of different ages to make up for the hard times. When nursing them, each nipple will produce a different type of milk, appropriate to the ages of the two joeys. Kangaroos and wallabies cannot sweat or pant to lose heat, so instead they lick their forearms to cool down. The agile wallaby is a common wallaby in the tropics and is often encountered in campgrounds and picnic areas. Females with a joey in the pouch usually have an extra embryo in storage in the uterus which will begin developing if anything happens to the joey.
Grass trees are a group of exclusively Australian plants. They are slow growing and their seeds require fire to germinate. The trunks of old grass trees are usually black from a long history of surviving through brushfires.
Magnetic termite mounds. These strange looking monoliths are the homes of magnetic termites. Magnetic termites got their name from the north-south orientation of the thin, flat mounds, an adaptation to reduce the amount of direct sun hitting them during the hottest part of the day.
The cassowary is listed n the Guinness Book of World Records as the most dangerous bird in the world. Using the long, stiletto-like claws of its inner toes, the cassowary has caused a number of deaths by lashing out with its powerful legs. Wild cassowaries are shy by nature, however, and unprovoked attacks are rare. Most attacks have been associated with captive animals or wild individuals defending their nests. 50 rainforest tree species depend on the cassowary to spread their seeds through its droppings. The southern cassowary is a keystone species for Australian rainforests. Without the cassowary, our rainforests would not have the incredible diversity for which they are known. The role the cassowary plays is a simple one: it swallows fallen fruit whole and the undamaged seeds come out with its droppings. In the process, the cassowary spreads the seeds of many trees whose fruit are too large for any other rainforest animal to carry. The cassowary’s resilient digestive system also allows it to eat fruit which are small but too toxic for other animals to eat. In total, around 150 tree species depend on the cassowary to spread their seeds. Without the cassowary, the spread of these trees would be restricted to a small circle around the parent tree from which the fruit fell.
Koalas. Some people believe their sluggish, dopey nature is a survival mechanism, as their diet is so low in nutrients the koala cannon afford to waste energy on a big brain or active lifestyle. Koalas are on a very restrictive diet. Of all the food available in the forests in which they live, they can only eat the leaves of a very small number of Eucalyptus trees. Koalas choose the best leaves by using their large nose. What’s more, the Eucalyptus leaves they love so much happen to be leathery, poisonous to eat and very low in nutrition. Koalas have a tough liver to deal with those poisons, but without special bacteria in their gut they wouldn’t be able to digest the leaves at all. However, koalas aren’t born with those special gut bacteria. The very first solid meal a baby koala eats is its mother’s stool – she produces a special paste, called pap, to pass some of these important bacteria on to her young. To avoid wasting any of that valuable nutrition by running around, koalas sleep 20 hours of every day. They also have a small brain, as thinking uses up a lot of energy too. Luckily, they don’t really need to think much, as they don’t have to hunt for their food and very few animals hunt for them in the trees. There’s usually little reason for them to spend much time on the ground, either, as they rarely drink. Koalas sleep with their head tucked under so water runs right off them when it rains. Koalas have two thumbs to give them an extra powerful grip while climbing trees.
That's all on these guys, I might go to the zoo and have even more notes later.
And finally, me under the water, displaying enormous faith in glass.
