The Creator’s Australian Masterpieces

By “Awake!” correspondent in Australia

IMAGINE yourself in the Australian bush. As you look around, you note an impression in the ground that resembles the figure eleven. What are you looking at? Why, just one of the many characteristics of the Australian animal creation that make it different from those in other lands. You are seeing the tracks left by the animal that hops instead of runs​—the kangaroo.

Suppose you follow a set of tracks a little way. Note that here and there a third stroke is added to the pair, beneath and between them. That is where he rested, sitting upon his thick tail and maybe thumping the ground with it to signal others of the herd.

Stand very quiet and just look. There, did you see those pointed “leaves” rise behind that bush? He has also spotted us. See with what graceful bounds “old man roo,” as we call him, clears obstacles on his way to safety!

His mode of travel is only one of a number of things that make the kangaroo different. “Joey,” as we call the young of the kangaroo, highlights more of the differences. These start before its birth.

The kangaroo is what is called “marsupial,” meaning having a pouch in which to carry its young. But actually the designation “marsupial” has a deeper connotation than simply that.

Joey’s Remarkable Birth

Animals that are not marsupial (or “monotrematous,” as we shall see later) are called “placental,” meaning that the mother has a womb in which the embryo is nurtured and to which it is joined by a “placenta.” Joey’s Ma has no womb. Instead, he starts to grow soon after conception in a yolk sac in which the embryo is nourished until, from eight to forty days later, according to kind, the sac ruptures and joey is born.

We say “born,” but “produced” might be better. Because when he leaves his mother he is still in a semi-embryonic state, with no eyes or ears developed and having only the sense of smell. In appearance he resembles a bit of shaped, almost transparent rubber. Now prepare yourself for something really amazing. This tiny embryonic creature, big as a bean, climbs hand over hand up its mother’s fur, guided, it is believed, by its sense of smell, in search of her pouch​—a journey taking about three minutes. Locating it, if he does, he dives inside, there to complete the birth process, which takes several months.

But suppose he misses the pouch, what then? Too bad! He could go wandering for up to half an hour, and if he still fails, his life career comes to an early end. And what is Ma kangaroo doing about all of this? Just nothing. She does not worry. By this time in all probability she has already conceived again while joey was in the birth passage. But the new embryo will not develop beyond one hundred cells. At this stage its development is arrested in what is called a “blastocyst” against some such emergency as this. And in this arrested stage of development it will remain until the pouch is unoccupied and only then will it resume its growth.

But our joey did make it. He reached his destination quite unassisted. Mamma kangaroo made very scant preparation, merely licking the pouch clean and then sitting with her tail forward and leaning against a tree to keep her from tumbling from this unstable posture. Once inside the pouch, joey fixes on to a nipple, and this immediately swells and locks him there, and Ma, by muscular action squirts her milk down his tiny throat. From now on you can remove joey only by rupturing his mouth.

So incredible is the whole process that early explorers and naturalists thought joey was born in the pouch, “like apples on a twig,” as one described it. It was many years later that the London Zoo first witnessed the embryonic birth and even then thought the mother transferred the young to the pouch with her lips. Not until 1932 was it known that it made its way to the pouch unaided.

We can pass by the period that joey is in the pouch, except to note that he grows there from the size of a bean, thirty-three to the ounce, to some few pounds. Only after eight months and when weaned does he detach himself and start to leave the pouch for short periods. Even so, he still likes to take breakfast in bed​—a feat he easily manages by leaning out of bed and nibbling at the passing grass as Ma forages.

Running (hopping) now with from six to fifty roos, joey grows to kangaroohood, being called “old man roo” in bush parlance. If he is of the “red” variety he may grow to five or six feet tall, weigh up to 200 pounds, jump as high as ten feet and travel twenty feet at a bound, thirty miles an hour.

He is a mild or even timid creature unless cornered and fighting for his life. Then, with back to a tree and sitting upon his tail, he threshes away with fore and hind legs and sharp claws​—a match for several dogs. And if he feels he is getting the worst of it, he will bound away to a “billabong,” or water hole. There, standing up to his waist in water, he will submerge dog after dog as they swim to him and hold them beneath his tail or legs until they drown. So much just now for the kangaroo.

The Koala

There are other marsupials besides the roo. Does that surprise you? It does some, but who has not seen a picture of the cuddly koala? He is marsupial, and the females have a pouch. His name means, in the language of the aborigine, “I don’t drink.” And, indeed, he does not. But what he eats! Up to three pounds of gum leaves daily. That explains why, if you live outside Australia, you do not have a koala in your local zoo. The Australian government forbids his export. No other country can feed him. He is a selective eater. Out of over a hundred species of gum, he will eat the leaves from only six, and, as these are not found outside Australia in any profusion, he would die.

It is said that the leaves of the gum have a narcotic effect, possibly accounting for the koala’s sleepy, docile nature. But beware! Do not let his friendliness and mildness deceive you. One American soldier made that mistake after fondling one at the zoo. Finding one later in the bush, he thought he would take it and show it to his girl friend in the car. The koala had other thoughts. The price of the soldier’s ignorance was a new uniform and six weeks in the hospital.

Other Marsupials

Among other marsupials there are many so much like their placental “doubles” in appearance and habit that they could easily be mistaken for them. Marsupial mice, rats, cats, moles, anteaters and wolves are like the placentals in certain respects, yet quite different in other ways.

For example, there is a mouse that can jump six feet and catch an insect on the wing by sonar detection; a cat that gives birth to twenty kittens but has only six nipples, and a wolf that can open its mouth 180 degrees.

There is a bandicoot that can burrow faster than man and shovel can follow him and whose pouch wisely opens toward the rear so that it does not get filled with dirt. One kangaroo with prehensile tail is arboreal and a remarkable acrobat. There is a marsupial numbat (banded anteater) that has no pouch, also a small marsupial mouse that lives in dried mud cracks, and has a skull only one-eighth of an inch from crown to neck.

Extant today in Australia and New Guinea are a total of 175 species of marsupials, of which 104 are vegetarians and 71 meat eaters. Extinct marsupials are said to include the diprotodon, large as a rhino, and a ten-foot-tall kangaroo, the procoptodon.

Do you wonder that early explorers and settlers in Australia were bewildered by the wildlife so contrary to all they previously knew? Except for two in the Americas, marsupials are native nowhere else on earth.

The Monotremes

There are thousands of species of placentals, 175 of marsupials, as we have noted, but only two monotremes. Both are found only in Australia.

The word “monotreme” comes from the Greek and means “one hole.” This has reference to the fact that from the monotreme’s body there is only one exit, called the “cloaca.” From this one passage come excreta, urine and egg. Yes, EGG! The two species of monotremes are the only mammals known to lay eggs.

Most people are already familiar with the platypus. As though not satisfied with being an egg-laying mammal, the platypus heaps oddity upon oddity until it seems like some taxidermist’s joke. And so it appeared to those first seeing it. In fact, when a description of it was sent to British naturalists they just refused to believe the report. Even when a dried skin was sent to them they decided it was an imposture. Why all this incredulity? Let us see.

Besides laying eggs, the platypus has the following miscellany: animal fur, milk ducts, ducklike bill, webbed feet, heavy beaver-like tail, poison claws on feet and a monkey-like cheek pouch for storing food. Can you imagine the impression the platypus made on those early naturalists?

Yet, because of this hodgepodge of gifts, the platypus reflects the Creator’s wise skill, making him admirably suited to his environment, so that he flourished until the advent of man and gun. With claws for burrowing and fur to keep him warm, he is at home on land, though his real environment is the water. But most wonderful of all is his bill.

This is no horny, lifeless member as is the duck’s. It is highly sensitive​—a mass of nerve endings. When he submerges and propels himself by powerful tail and webbed feet, his eyes and ears become hermetically sealed and the bill takes over. Probing the slime, he sucks in mud, sand and worms! Worms and prawns and larvae! Now his bill gets busy selecting meat from mud, storing the one in his cheek pouch and ejecting the other until he surfaces for air and to consume his catch. He keeps busy, rightly, for he eats half his weight a day in worms. This explains why in captivity he costs more to keep than an elephant.

Besides functioning as ears, eyes and nose when swimming, his bill becomes built-in radar when burrowing. Life Nature Library has this to say: “The bill of a platypus is a mass of nerves relaying tactile sensations . . . When burrowing, the platypus is said to have a mysterious awareness of cavities in the earth ahead, which enables it to avoid breaking through into adjacent rabbit warrens, rat holes or other platypus burrows.” Similarly, it senses tree roots and rocks ahead and diverts before reaching them. Would you not agree that the platypus is marvelously fitted to his environment?

The same may be said of the other member of the monotreme family, the echidna. As the only other egg-laying mammal it might be expected to resemble the platypus. But apart from laying eggs, it resembles the other in only two ways: Both suckle their young and both have the single body exit or cloaca.

The more common name, spiny anteater, better reveals the echidna’s appearance. In actuality it looks much like a hedgehog, except that its quills are shorter, thicker and extremely sharp. Its short, powerful legs are admirably designed for burrowing into iron-hard anthills for his favorite diet, the termite.

The echidna also has a pouch. Or, better stated, it can produce one at will. After the young one is hatched, the female, by muscle contraction, forms a pouch around the milk glands and into this, by what means we do not know, the young is placed. There he remains a tenant, licking the milk-saturated surface for nourishment, until his quills start to form and he is no longer a peaceful occupant of Ma’s fleshly cradle. Out he goes!

Besides these, the echidna has other singular characteristics. One of these is its prodigious strength, in spite of its being only twenty inches long and weighing only two or three pounds. One naturalist experienced this when he kept one overnight for security in his living room. By morning, in the echidna’s endeavors to find a way of escape, he had shifted every piece of heavy furniture away from the wall! Only an iron stove defeated him​—that was fastened to the wall!

Another interesting attribute is Mr. Echidna’s ability to burrow vertically​—at speed! Muzzle and legs unite in removing even hard gravel from beneath him to the sides and upward at a speed that will lower him out of sight in about one minute, often leaving visible sharp quills for any probing nose or claw. Lastly, there is his ability to flatten himself and crawl through an aperture only an inch high.

What do you think? Can you see in all of this grand variety the hand of a wise Creator? Yes, we can be grateful for the glimpses our quest has given us of the Creator’s Australian masterpieces.

[Picture on page 9]

Only after eight months does a baby kangaroo leave its mother’s pouch for short periods

[Picture on page 11]

The koala feeds on gum leaves

[Picture on page 12]

The platypus is an egg-laying mammal with an amazing ducklike bill