The fauna of Australia comprises a huge variety of unique animals; some 83% of mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of fish and insects and 93% of amphibians that inhabit the continent are endemic. This high level of endemism can be attributed to the continent's long geological isolation, tectonic stability, and the effects of an unusual pattern of climate change on the soil and flora over geological time. A unique feature of Australia's fauna is the relative scarcity of native placental mammals. Consequently the marsupials, a group of mammals that raise their young in a pouch including the macropods, possums and dasyuromorphs, mostly fill the ecological niches that are occupied by placental mammals elsewhere in the world. Australia is home to two of the five extant egg-laying monotremes, and has numerous venomous species, which include the Platypus, spiders, scorpions, octopuses, jellyfish, molluscs, stonefish, stingrays. Uniquely, Australia has more venomous than non-venomous species of snakes.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna_of_Australia

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1831: Aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin left Plymouth, England on what became an historic expedition to South America. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Beagle)

1904: Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a stage play by J. M. Barrie, premiered in London. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan)

1918: A public speech by famed Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski (pictured) in Pozna? sparked the Greater Poland Uprising against Germany. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacy_Jan_Paderewski)

1945: International ratification of the Bretton Woods Agreement, leading to the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system)

1949: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands signed the papers that relinquished sovereignty of most of Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"Except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between." -- Sarah Vowell (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sarah_Vowell)