Australia: Land Beyond Time Page #2

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As the forest dried it adapted

to live on the leaves of the gum tree

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Now it drinks little water

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and its digestive system

can extract moisture

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and nutrients from leaves that would

be toxic to most other mammals

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Koalas use as little energy as possible

resting about 19 hours a day

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Some members of the family however

are active at any hour

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When moving from tree to tree

they normally descend backwards

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Consejuently tree top traffic jams can

sometimes leave one out on a limb

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For years on end much of the Australian

inland receives little or no rain

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Two thirds is classified arid

and one half is desert

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The Outback as it is called

covers most of the continent

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By rights nothing should live here

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this ought to be a lifeless wasteland

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But it is not

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The closer we look the more we find that

some of Australia's forest inhabitants

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have met the desert's challenge

with subtlety and resource

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Now a diverse underworld of ants

rodents marsupials and reptiles

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are among the most

successful desert dwellers on Earth

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By day most life in this land ocean

is hidden beneath the surface

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Many of the desert animals

come out to feed in the cool of night

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These tiny hopping mice survive

because they rarely need to drink

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Most of the water they require

is contained in the seeds they eat

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ln the heat of the day

they huddle together in deep burrows

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creating a humid atmosphere

that helps to conserve moisture

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ln this arid region hardy mulga trees

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provide food for one of Australia's

four thousand species of ants

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Six feet below the surface

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honey ants hang like clusters of golden

grapes in cool humid larder chambers

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These specialised ants

are living honey pots

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They are force fed by worker ants

on nectar

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harvested from the sap of mulga trees

growing above

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When food is scarce

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these honey pots feed the workers

by regurgitating their nectar on demand

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Their underground storehouse will see the

whole colony through the toughest of times

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Arid Australia

is the land of the lizards

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There can be up to forty seven different

varieties in just one area

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The Thorny Devil has a sticky tongue

and it's picky about what it eats

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Out here black ants are one food

that never runs out

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The devil is perfectly adapted

to the desert

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lts prickly skin collects moisture

from the air

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and a system of fine channels along

its body

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carries the water to its mouth

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The biggest and most fearsome of the

desert lizards is the perentie

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which is both scavenger and predator

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This lizard can exceed six feet in length

and outrun a human

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lt hunts anything

including the most aggressive

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and deadly of Australia's many snakes

the King Brown

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Sometimes though the King Brown

is more than even a perentie can manage

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The venom from this snake's bite

will kill a human in minutes

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Luckily for the perentie it is immune

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While much of Australia's life

was adapting to the dry inland

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some of its plants and animals retreated

to the mountains of the east coast

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Here moist valleys and cool peaks

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provide a haven for Australia's

living links with the past

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ln scattered pockets

of primitive rainforest

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descendants of Gondwana's

original plants and animals thrive today

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These Antarctic Beech trees began

growing between 3 and 5 thousand years ago

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but their roots

are in the ancient super continent

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Most of Australia's native plants

and animals

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began to evolve in wet

cool forests like these

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One of the most remarkable living links

with that ancient world

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is found in the creeks

and freshwater rivers of the east coast

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The Platypus suckles

its young like a mammal

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yet lays egg like a lizard

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lt hunts under water with its eyes shut

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using electric sensors in its bill

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The first Europeans

to see it were dumbfounded

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To them it was a living contradiction

if not a practical joke

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The Platypus though has survived

for 120 million years

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Today it exists nowhere else on earth

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The nearest surviving relative

of the Platypus

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is the Echidna

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With its tubular snout and long

sticky tongue

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it lives on ants and termites

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Unlike the Platypus the Echidna moved out

of the cool forests

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and now ranges across the whole continent

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When threatened it digs in rapidly

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presenting an array of sharp spines

to its attacker

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