Amazing facts about Australian Animals

I wrote this for a class based on Google found information.  Some interesting facts about our local critters.

• Marsupials like koalas and kangaroos can be found nowhere else in the world. Marsupials are animals that bring up their babies in a pouch.
• It is difficult to be a wild animal in Australia. It is very dry and food can be hard to find. This means animals need to use less energy.
• Marsupials use so little energy that they need to eat one-fifth less food than mammals of the same size.
• There are over 60 different species (types) of kangaroos.
• Kangaroos hop because it is takes much less energy to move around.
• A million years ago, there was a type of kangaroo that was over three metres tall.
• Koalas eat gum leaves which are so poisonous that they use 20% of their energy just digesting their food. They make up for this by having tiny brains (brains use up a lot of energy). They are very stupid! But nothing hunts them so it is OK.
• Koalas are not always cute. They can make an extremely loud growling noise.
• Australia has two mammals that can lay eggs. They are the platypus and echidna. They are the only animals in the world to lay eggs.
• Platypuses can eat their own body weight in food in a 24 hour period!
• The Emu is the world's third largest bird. The nest of an Emu can be up to 1.5 metres wide!
• The Tasmanian Devil has very strong jaws (nearly as strong as a crocodile). This helps them to eat bones.
• There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia and only 20 million people. That's 8 sheep for every person.
• Young Kookaburras (a type of bird) often stay with their parents to help them bring up new chicks because food is difficult to find.
• It is thought that Dingos were the first domesticated dogs and the "father" of all other domestic dog breeds.
• Australia has the longest fence. It's known as the Dingo Fence and runs through central Queensland and is designed to keep sheep safe from our native dog the Dingo... the fence is about 6 feet high and stretches over 5500 kilometers.

Dangerous Animals

• Australia is home to 10 of the world's 15 most poisonous snakes. Of Australia's 155 species of land snakes, 93 are poisonous.
• The Australian Taipan is the most poisonous snake in the world.
• The Stone Fish that lives in the Great Barrier reef has strong poison that can kill a person in less than two hours. People sometimes step on them. The only way to stop the poison is to put your foot in boiling water. Ouch!
• The box jellyfish kills more people in Australian each year than Snakes, Sharks and Salt Water Crocodiles.
• The Irukandji jellyfish is only 2.5 centimetres in diameter, but can cause death to humans within days.
• There are 1500 species of Australian spiders.
• The saltwater crocodile is the world's largest reptile - males can reach a staggering 6 metres long.
• The temperature of the saltwater crocodile's egg will decide the sex of the baby crocodile.
• The saltwater crocodile has only two muscles to open its mouth but 40 to close it!