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Last week a few students at Elkins Middle School attended my presentation on the early evolution of animals in Australia. The students had seen news reports about the plight of Kangaroos and Koalas during December when Australia was ablaze with uncontrollable fires. By the time we got to Australia in January, the surviving animals and their keepers were working to regain a normal routine. However, many Australian species of are endangered.
EMS students were surprised to learn how many curious marsupials (mammals with pouches) live in Australia besides the Kangaroos and Koalas. For example, Bandicoots look like rats, but these little characters walk confidently into a crowd of people. Although Wombats look like pudgy dogs, they do not eat meat. Wombats live on the ground, but they are passive and slow-moving much like their arboreal cousins, the Koalas.
In North America opossums are our only marsupials, but they are gray and boring in comparison with the various possums of Australia. The black-and-white striped possums look like our skunks.
The ring tailed possum has a rusty red face with big brown eyes, and the bush tailed possum has a big furry tail. He is visible in the trees of the city parks at night.
Most of the mammals in Australia are rather peaceful creatures, but Tasmanian Devils are as frightening as any animal I have ever seen in action. They are the height of a medium size dog with shiny black fur and a muscular body. If these carnivores are disturbed when they are ready to eat, they will bare their ferocious teeth and growl with hostility.
Perhaps the mammal that caught the imagination of EMS students most vividly is known as "Flying- Fox." These mega-bats are about the size of small foxes hanging up-side-down by their feet in the trees at the botanical gardens and other forested areas. When they spread their web-like wings and sail through the sky in a cluster, they would cast a dark shadow overhead.
Various types of Platypuses are known as "living fossils" because these marsupials lay eggs. In the fantastical forests of Australia the Duckbilled Platypus has the head of a duck and the tail of a beaver, and the Echida has spines like a porcupine but lays eggs like a bird. These hybrid creatures remind me of the mythical Sphinx with the head of a woman and body of a lion, or the cruel Minotaur with the head of a man and body of a bull.
I wonder, are such curious mammals strange monsters, or just evolutionary attempts at survival?