13 Unique Australian Animals

Something for both Australians and others, I’ve avoided most of the obvious ones and put in a few that are a bit more obscure, including many of my favourites.  It’s sometimes hard to remember how truly unique our animals are.

1. Numbats – The state animal of Western Australia.  Marsupials like most Australian mammals, they are ant-eaters with a very long and flexible tongue to reach into ant nests.



2. Black Swan – The state  bird of WA and on the flag.  Three guesses where I’m originally from.  They are smaller than the European species and don’t migrate because the weather in the South-west is so mild.  I love the beautiful ruffled feathers on their backs.



3. Redback – Isn’t she gorgeous?  They are a type of black widow with the distinctive shape but a bright red stripe on the female’s back.  They are not generally deadly with medical assistance but their bite is extremely painful. (Look in the comments for an interesting discussion on redbacks and whether or not they are native.)



4. Perentie – The largest Australian lizard, a type of monitor, they live in the arid inland and western areas.  They can grow up to 2.5m long and weigh 20kg.  Like other large monitors they are mildly venomous – not enough to kill, but they do cause swelling and disrupt blood clotting.  They are important to Australian Aboriginal people both spiritually and as a food animal, they’re delicious.



5. Budgerigars – or budgies, now one of the world’s most popular pet birds.  These green ones are the original colour and large flocks can still be seen throughout the arid regions, but they have now been bred in all sorts of different colours including blue, purple and white.  A small type of parrot, they are friendly and talkative.
6. Bull ant – that ruler is in centimetres!  These ants are around an inch long, I recently saw one for the first time and it was enormous.  Those pincers are very sharp and very painful, luckily they are solitary, can you imagine a whole nest?
7. Archer fish – while it may appear fairly boring, archer fish are very interesting to biologists.  They are found in a lot of northern waters and there appear to be several species.  The name comes from their hunting technique – they get close to the surface and spit water at insects, bringing them down where they can eat them.



8. Thorny devil – what a cutie!  This is probably my all time favourite animal, they’re quirky and beautifully adapted to the desert.  The thorns are part of how they drink, tiny droplets of dew condense on them then run along grooves in their skin to the mouth, but they are also great at discouraging predators.  The lump on the back of the neck is a false head – when they are threatened they bend their real head forward between their legs.



9. Cassowary – technically not uniquely Australian they are found in New Guinea too.  But biologically New Guinea is part of Australia, so it counts.  They are closely related to emus and ostriches but live in the rainforests of north Queensland.  The helmet or casque helps them push through the dense vegetation.  They have a very long claw on one of their toes and defend themselves with quite a dangerous kick.  The females are larger and dominant and the males tend the eggs.



10. Sugar glider – Awww.  There are several species of wrist-winged gliders in Australia and New Guinea, they are a type of small nocturnal possum. The wings are large flaps of skin between their fingers and toes and they can glide 50-150m in the right conditions.  The tail acts as a rudder.
11. Olive python - The Rainbow Serpent is one of the most widespread Dreaming spirits, it usually brings rain and has created waterholes and rivers.  Olive pythons are a large northern snake that swim and like water, and in the light you can see a rainbow sheen sheen along their scales.  Maybe wishful thinking, but it certainly seems a good candidate for inspiring the spirit.
12. Mudskipper – that’s a fish sitting in that tree.  Not uniquely Australian they’re actually spread around the world, especially in mangroves and tidal flats, but certainly unique.  When out of water they ‘skip’ on their pectoral fins and take in oxygen through their skin and the mucosa of their mouth and throat.  This only works when they are wet, so they live mainly in humid, tropical environments.  They are carnivorous predators and are quite comfortable on land.  I think they’re fascinating.



13. Barramundi - extremely tasty!  Fish often have far more interesting life cycles than us boring mammals, and barramundi are a well known example.  They spend most of their time in freshwater rivers, but head to estuaries or tidal areas to spawn – the eggs need brackish water to develop.  If they are cut off from freshwater they can also be entirely marine (Apparently they’re found throughout a lot of Asia, as you’d expect from a sea creature).  Young fish mature first as males, then turn into females – they are serial hermaphrodites.  For this reason most areas have both upper and lower size limits – taking the small fish would take too many males, but fishing the largest would remove too many females.  There are generally strict limits on the ones in the middle.

That’s just a few of the Australian animals we don’t hear about as often as kangaroos and koalas.  Do you have a favourite obscure animal?

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