Eighty-seven per cent endemic

Wildlife

No other continent has wildlife so much its own. When Australia separated from the rest of the land, placental mammals had not yet reached it, and the marsupials took every role.

The best known wildlife of Australia takes in the monotremes, the marsupials —such as the kangaroo, the koala and the wombat— and birds such as the emu. The monotremes are the only branch of mammals that still lays eggs, and only five species are left in the world: all of them live in Australia or New Guinea.

Cards

A red kangaroo hopping over the red earth of a plain with dry scrub — Kangaroo

The only large animal in the world that travels by hopping: past a certain speed, hopping costs it less energy than running.

A wombat walking through the grass — Wombat

It digs burrows up to thirty metres long, and its pouch faces backwards so that it does not fill with earth.

Narrow the window and the two cards stack one under the other.