Australia is a huge country, with habitats ranging from tropical rainforests, to arid desert, to temperate grasslands and snowy mountains. It is home to a vast array of wildlife, and a lot of the species are totally unique and found nowhere else in the world.

Australia is home to most of the world's marsupial species.  Marsupials differ from mammals in that they have pouches in which to nurture their young.  The young are born at a very immature stage of their development, and have to climb up their mother's body after birth and find their way into her pouch.  Once there they latch onto a teat and stay in the pouch suckling until they are old enough to start emerging for short periods.  Some species of marsupials, such as kangaroos can have a baby developing in the womb, one in the pouch and an older joey at foot.

Australia is also home to a group of animals known as monotremes, which are mammals that lay eggs.  The two main species of monotremes are platypuses and echidnas.  Although they lay eggs they do lactate to feed their young by expressing the milk via opening in their skin, rather than through defined nipples

Kangaroos are one of the most iconic of Australian animal species, and indeed feature on the Australian coat of arms and as the logo of the Qantas, the country's flagship airline carrier. There are between 30 and 50 million kangaroos in Australia and they can be found in all parts of the country.

There are four main species of kangaroo: the Red Kangaroo which is the largest of the kangaroo species and also the largest marsupial in the world, the Eastern Grey Kangaroo, the Western Grey Kangaroo, and the Antilopine Kangaroo.

Kangaroos are social animals and live in groups called 'mobs'. The males are known as bucks, the females are known as does and the babies are known as joeys.

Kangaroos are herbivorous, living off grasses, leaves and young shoots.

While generally not a danger to humans, they have occasionally been known to attack. Unfortunately, many kangaroos get killed on the roads, and can be a real danger to drivers, as a large kangaroo can cause serious damage to a car. Also many female kangaroos have joeys in their pouches when they are hit, who will also die if they are not rescued

Wallabies are the kangaroo's smaller cousin. Like kangaroos they are part of the macropod ('big foot') family. There are around thirty different species of wallaby and they are distributed widely throughout Australia. They range from the tiny Pademelons to the larger Black-striped Wallaby.

They are more likely to be found in more rugged or forested areas, than out on the wide plains. Some of the wallaby species are very specific to certain areas and habitats with small populations, which makes them very vulnerable to any changes in their environment, especially the incursion of humans.

Some of the wallaby species live in very specialised habitats, such as the Rock Wallabies who live on steep, rocky escarpments, and hop up and down as agilely as cats.

The Australian national rugby union team are also known as the 'Wallabies'.

On Rottnest Island and a few other other islands, off the coast of Perth in Western Australia there can be found a totally unique species of macropod, the Quokka. Quokkas are tiny, congregate in groups, are herbivorous and mainly nocturnal,

Koalas are another famous Australian animal.  They used to be called incorrectly 'koala bears'; but they are not bears, they are marsupials.  They live in trees and live almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves.  They range along the coastal regions from South Australia to the far north of Tropical Queensland.

Koalas sleep for large portions of the day, between 16-18 hours.  This is probably due to their diet as eucalyptus leaves are very high in fibre and low in nutrition.  The koalas very slow metabolic rate allows them to keep food in their digestive system for a long time, maximising the amount of nutrients thay can take out of it.

Koalas are very vulnerable to losing habitat through land clearing and urbanisation,  They are also prone to diseases caused by chlamydia.

 Wombats are short-legged, stocky quadrupeds who have large front teeth and powerful claws for digging burrows,  Wombats are marsupials, but their pouch faces backwards, so that when it is digging it does not get dirt inside.  Wombats are mainly nocturnal and live on grasses, bark and roots.

Like the koalas, they have very a very slow metabolism and can take up to fourteen days to digest their food,

They are territorial and defend burrows vigorously; reacting very aggressively to intruders.

Female wombats have one baby a year in the spring, which like all marsupials lives in it's mother's pouch until it has matured sufficiently to live independently.

Like most Australian animal species, the biggest threat to the wombat is from humans.  They are vulnerable to land clearing, being killed on the roads and used to be classed as vermin, though they are now protected.

The platypus is a monotreme or egg-laying mammal. It is semi-aquatic and lives in rivers and streams in eastern Australia and Tasmania. They are very hard to spot in the wild, but there are some tours that take you out to look for them, notably in the Eungella National Park.

Platypus have a very strange appearance, being duck-billed, covered with dark fur, and having a broad, flat tail. Very rarely among mammals they are venomous; the male having a spur on it's ankle that can produce poison.

They are carnivorous and feed on insect larvae, small shrimps and worms. They find their food by electrolocation, using the electoreceptors in their sensitive bills to detect the tiniest movements of their prey while they are digging in stream beds

Echidna are covered with spines, which has led them to be also known as 'spiny anteaters'. They are also egg-laying mammals, and the female lays a single egg which she deposits directly into her pouch. Young echidna are known as puggles and stay in the pouch after they hatch until they have developed enough to be left in the burrow.

Echidna are carnivorous and use their long, slender snouts and sticky tongues to plunder anthills and termite nests.

So kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, koalas, platypus and echidna are all out there to see on your travels around Australia.  Some are easier to catch a glimpse of than others, but there are many wonderful National Parks, Zoos and Wildlife Collections in Australia where you can get a good chance of spotting your Australian favourite! Enjoy your holidays, but remember to treat the animals that you meet with respect, follow all the instructions on the signs and from your guides, and do not litter or do anything to destroy the sometimes fragile habitats that these amazing Australian animals live in.

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