Australian animals

Koalas are a marsupial that lives in Australia. Marsupials are animals that keep their babies in pouches. Koalas live in eucalypt trees, and eat only eucalypt leaves. Koalas move very slowly and spend most of their time asleep. Koalas have two thumbs on each hand and foot. A baby koala is called a joey, the same as a baby kangaroo. When the joey has left its mother's pouch, it will ride on her back for another six months. The closest relative of the koala is the wombat.

A lory is a type of brightly colored medium sized parrot that lives on a number of islands in the tropics. Lories mainly eat nectar and fruit.

A pardalote is a small, bright Australian bird with a short, pointed beak and neat, speckled plumage. It lives in dry woodland and shrubland. Pardalotes feed mainly on insects and small grubs, and they also visit flowers for nectar.

The platypus is a very unusual animal found only in Australia. It lays eggs, but it is not a bird. Platypus and echidnas are the only two animals that lay eggs. The male platypus can inject you with venom from a spur on its hind leg, but it is not related to the snake.
Platypus are found in waterways, and are very good swimmers. They grow to about half a metre long, and are dark brown with a rubbery snout, very much like a duck's beak.

A potoroo is a small, plant-eating marsupial found in Australia. It looks like a rodent with a long nose and has strong back legs for jumping.

Potoroos use their nose to dig for roots, bulbs, and other plants.

Quolls are carniverous marsupials found in Australia and Papua New Guinea. Like all marsupials, they have a pouch where their young stay. A quoll's pouch faces backwards.

lan A ringtail possum is a small tree-dwelling marsupial, like an animal with a pouch, found in Australia and New Guinea. It has a long, ringed tail that helps it balance.

It lives in forests and woodlands and often looks for leaves, fruit, and insects. At night, it can move along branches and may use its tail to grip.

The sugar glider is a small marsupial found in Australia and New Guinea that looks like a tiny possum. Sugar gliders have a flap of skin between their front and back legs on both sides that they can stretch out and use to glide. Sugar gliders can jump out of trees and glide through the air to another tree, like a flying squirrel.
Sugar gliders eat the sweet sap of some trees, and some types of nectar.

Tawny frogmouths are birds very distantly related to owls. Owls usually hunt by flying around at night looking for food, but tawny frogmouths sit still on a perch waiting for food to come to them. They catch their prey with their beaks rather than their feet, and sometimes drop from their perch onto the prey on the ground.
Tawny Frogmouths hunt at night and spend the day sitting on a dead log or tree branch. They camouflage very well. They sit very still, and look just like a piece of dead tree branch.

Tree kangaroos are very distant relatives of the kangaroo. They have adapted to life in trees, eating leaves, fruit and bark. Tree kangaroos are endangered, and are only found in the rainforests in mountainous areas of far north-eastern Australia, New Guinea and some islands in the same area.