Natural zones and flora of Australia (0)

Natural Zones and Flora .
There are five distinguishable natural zones in Australia . In the very east there are wet forests (1.) that occupy the space between the Great Dividing Range and the eastern coast.
Westward from the Great Dividing Range the wet forests give place to beautiful grasslands with some trees . These grasslands are called the savannas (2.). Farther west the trees disappear and the bushlands (3.) begin. The real desert (4.) occupies the centre of the Western Plateau . In the very southwest there are thin forests of evergreen trees (5.).
Most of Australian trees are kinds of eucalyptus trees (or gum trees to Australians) and acacia ( wattle to Australians). Eucalyptus trees are found everywhere in Australia. There are many kinds of them and they greatly differ in size. One kind, the great mountain ash, can grow to 120 metres and it grows in the wet forests in the eastern part of the continent .These strong trees do not die when there are forest fires. Some other kinds are small bushes in the semi-deserts.Eucalyptuses give the local people timber and eucalyptus oil.
Of 600 kinds of acacias the golden wattle, the national flower of Australia, is the best known .
Australia has many other kinds of tree, and thousands of kinds of wild flowers too. Of other trees there grow bottle trees in the savannas, tree ferns in the tropical forests and many others.
Fauna .
The animal life of Australia is unique. The marsupials or pouched animals form the biggest group of animals in Australia. Most of the she-marsupials have pouches in which they carry their young.
The kangaroo is one Australian animal that everybody knows.There are more than 50 species of kangaroo. They are furry animals that hop on their hind legs . The biggest are red kangaroos, grey kangaroos and euros . The smallest are thekangaroos that belong to the group called rat kangaroos. There are million of kangaroos in Australia.
Another Australian marsupial is the wombat . It lives in burrows in grassland areas of Australia and Tasmania. It has short strong legs and long claws for digging burrows.Wombats live in groups and come out to look for food at night . They have poor eyesight but they can smell and hear very well. Their nearest living relatives are koalas.
The koala is one of the best known Australian animals. They live in eucalyptus trees,sleeping for 18 hours and eating 1 kilo of leaves each day. They drink almost nothing – they get water from the leaves of the trees.They eat leaves of only five of 500 different kinds of eucalyptus trees.Baby koalas spend the first three months of their life in their mother ’s pouch ,which opens to the back . They come out when they are about six months old.
The possum is a furry animal that lives in the trees of Australia. It is a marsupial and a very good climber. Possums move about at night and some of them come to cities to find food in gardens and dustbins. There are more than 40 species of possum in Australia. Some of them are called gliders as they have skin between their legs which they use like wings for gliding from one tree to another.
The Tasmanian devil is the only native carnivore that lives on the Australian island of Tasmania. The Tasmanian devil is about one metre long and it is usually black . It eats small mammals and lizards and even dead animals. As it is a marsupial, its babies grow up in its pouch.
The Tasmanian tiger (often also known as the Tasmanian wolf) also lived on Tasmania a hundred years ago. It had stripes on its back like a tiger. It was more than 1.5 metres long. Scientists believe that hunters killed all of them at the beginning of the 20th century.
The egg-laying mammals are the strangest of all the Australian animals.They lay eggs like birds and feed their young with milk as mammals do.They form a link between birds and mammals.
The platypus or the duck - bill is one of them.The female lays two eggs in a nest of leaves and grass at the end of a burrow in a river bank . When the young come out of the eggs , they start eating the milk that comes through the mother’s stomach skin.The platypus is a good swimmer and gets its food mainly from the river.It has a strong tail .
It lives in the rivers of East Australia mostly.
The echidna or a spiny ant- eater is the other egg-laying mammal that lives in Australia.It feeds on termites using its long, trunk-like nose to get them.
In the seas and rivers of northern Australia you can find crocodiles that are five or six metres long.
There are more than eight hundred kinds of birds in Australia. The emu, which is two metres tall , is the second largest bird in the world.It cannot fly at all, but it can run at fifty kilometres an hour . Then there is the kookaburra,whose cry sounds like someone laughing, and the budgerigar,a little blue or yellow bird that people keep in their homes all over the world. The lyrebird has got its name from the lyre-like tail of the he-bird.He can imitate all kinds of noises. The black swan is also found in Australia only. Many bright coloured parrots, birds of paradise and other colourful birds live in Australian forests.

Ordinary mammals are few in Australia.The dingo is a wolflike dog that is believed to have come to Australia with some of the groups of Aboriginal people sometime between 3,500 and 4000 years ago.The dingo is a menace to the local cattle-breeders.The dingo is a very social animal and they live in large family groups.They also form packs while hunting .

The Englishmen brought rabbits to Australia.Soon they became wild and very numerous.They are the real menace to the fields and pastures.