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Australia's most common native animals are marsupials. These are the pouched mammals (some pouches are nothing more than a flap of skin) and include:

  • some sixty species of kangaroo, including wallaroo, potoroo, pademelon, rufous rat-kangaroo and wallaby (note: the rat-kangaroo is quite different to the kangaroo rat of North America)
  • koala
  • wombat
  • many Australian species of possum (not opossum) such as the Mountain Pygmy Possum and Leadbeater's Possum
  • glider
  • bandicoot, including the bilby
  • quokka
  • quoll
  • Tasmanian Devil
  • phascogale
  • dunnart
  • cuscus
  • bettong
  • nabarlek
  • numbat
  • antechinus
  • false antechinus
  • marsupial mole
  • planigale
  • kaluta
  • mulgara
  • kowari
  • kultarr
  • ningaui

There are over 80 species of bats native to Australia. Dingoes are also found only in Australia.

Monotremes (egg laying mammals) are also native to Australia. These include the platypus and the short-beaked echidna, although the short-beaked echidna is found in one small region of Papua New Guinea.

Native birds include:

  • emu
  • Laughing kookaburra and Blue-winged kookaburra
  • Australian magpie (different from other magpies)
  • lyrebird
  • brush turkey
  • friar bird
  • bowerbird
  • many varieties of lorikeets, rosellas and parrots, including the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Gang-Gang Cockatoo, corella, mulga parrot and the Galah
  • Australia's most well-known native eagle is the Wedge-tailed Eagle. It is considered to be in the same "superspecies" as the Golden Eagle, but has some distinguishing characteristics (especially the shape of the tail).

There is a wide variety of native reptiles found only in Australia, such as:

  • Thorny Devil
  • Blue-tongue Lizard
  • Frill-necked lizard
  • goanna
  • Australia is also home to many of the world's most venomous snakes, such as the Inland Taipan, Death Adder, Mulga or King Brown, Red Bellied Black, Black Tiger, Copperhead, Gwardar, Collett's, Fierce, Eastern Tiger and Eastern Brown.

Amphibians which live only in Australia include native frogs such as corroboree frogs and pobblebonks.

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12y ago

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