AMAZINGLY WEIRD AUSSIE ANIMALS

Australia is famed for its weird and wonderful animals. From the alien blue-ringed octopus, which carries enough venom to kill 26 adult humans within minutes, to the patchwork anatomy of the duck-billed platypus, Australia is packed with species that, to the rest of the world, don’t make a lot of sense.

This is because these strange species often aren’t found anywhere else on Earth. 87 per cent of Australia’s mammals, 93 per cent of its reptiles and 45 per cent of its bird species can only be found in Australia. During Earth’s geographical evolution the smallest of the seven continents, modern-day Australia, broke away from a supercontinent that dominated the landscape of the world hundreds of millions of years ago. This meant that the species