Tasmanian Wildlife

Fauna

Tasmania was one of the few places in the Southern Hemisphere glaciated during the last ice age, so it has preserved a wide variety of insect, animal and plant species from prehistoric times, as well as a very complex and varied geology. It has several marsupial predators long since extinct on the mainland, as well as impressive extinct magafauna - kangaroos 10' tall, wombats the size of small cars, and marsupial lions like the North American Sabretoothed cat. Thylacine, the marsupial wolf hunted into extinction in the early 20th C, and the smaller Tasmanian Devil, are two such living.

Tasmania also has freshwater shrimp, tiny, lethal cave-spiders, and two of the world's oddest creatures: the egg-laying, milk-producing, burrowing Echidna, a spiny ant-eater, and its even odder relative, the amphibious, venomous, electrosensitive Platypus.

For more information about the Tasmanian Tiger and efforts to clone it, visit Wikipedia.

Flora

Tasmania has unique plants like the colourful Deciduous Beech [Nothofagus Gunnii], Huon pine, which do not mature until they are more than 500 years old, and some old specimens are more than 3,000 years old. In addition to to many unique and prehistoric alpine plants, Tasmania also has tree species like Swamp Gum [Eucalyptus Regnans], which regularly reach as high as California Redwoods: more than 300' high and 40' round the base.