Australia: Land Beyond Time Page #4

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carries the water to its mouth

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The biggest and most fearsome of the

desert lizards is the perentie

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which is both scavenger and predator

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This lizard can exceed six feet in length

and outrun a human

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lt hunts anything

including the most aggressive

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and deadly of Australia's many snakes

the King Brown

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Sometimes though the King Brown

is more than even a perentie can manage

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The venom from this snake's bite

will kill a human in minutes

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Luckily for the perentie it is immune

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While much of Australia's life

was adapting to the dry inland

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some of its plants and animals retreated

to the mountains of the east coast

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Here moist valleys and cool peaks

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provide a haven for Australia's

living links with the past

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ln scattered pockets

of primitive rainforest

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descendants of Gondwana's

original plants and animals thrive today

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These Antarctic Beech trees began

growing between 3 and 5 thousand years ago

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but their roots

are in the ancient super continent

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Most of Australia's native plants

and animals

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began to evolve in wet

cool forests like these

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One of the most remarkable living links

with that ancient world

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is found in the creeks

and freshwater rivers of the east coast

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The Platypus suckles

its young like a mammal

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yet lays egg like a lizard

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lt hunts under water with its eyes shut

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using electric sensors in its bill

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The first Europeans

to see it were dumbfounded

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To them it was a living contradiction

if not a practical joke

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The Platypus though has survived

for 120 million years

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Today it exists nowhere else on earth

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The nearest surviving relative

of the Platypus

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is the Echidna

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