Here’s one from my Australia trip back in 2006 that has been in my Australia gallery but was never posted to the blog. This personable little creature is called a short-beaked echidna (and is also known as a spiny anteater). They are mammals of the order monotreme. Monotremes are the only mammals that lay eggs. Only five are known to exist — all in Australia and New Guinea — including the platypus and four different species of echidna. The short-beaked echidna lacks the ability to sweat and therefore tends to avoid moving around much during the day. I spotted this guy late one afternoon about an hour after the sun had set on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.
Nikon D200 with Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 lens (at 17mm), ISO 400, f/8 at 1/60th of a second (-0.33 ev), Nikon SB-800 flash

These pelicans are very cartoony looking with those big yellow eye pads. I saw quite a few of them on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. They also have the distinction of possessing longest bill of any living bird species.

Keeping things in Australia for another day, this is a male regent bowerbird, photographed in Lamington National Park in Queensland. Male bowerbirds build elaborate structures on the ground, known as bowers, to attract females. They will line these bowers with sticks, shells, leaves, seeds and berries. They will also sometimes use wads of leaves as paintbrushes to spread a saliva paint to spruce up the place. This makes them one of the only known birds to use tools.

As promised after yesterday’s bug — cuddly and with fur. This is one of the koalas that I saw on Kangaroo Island in South Australia back in 2005.

This is an old one, but was never posted to the blog. That evil looking bird up there is a cassowary and it has been declared by the Guinness Book of World Records to be “the most dangerous bird in the world.” It earned this distinction in large part due to its huge claws that it uses to defend itself, usually aiming for the torso of would be intruders, human or otherwise. Native to northeastern Australia and Papua New Guinea, it is the third largest bird in the world behind the ostrich and the emu. Like those birds, it is flightless, and it can grow to over 6 feet tall and weigh more than 150 pounds. Lucky for me I had a 600mm lens on my camera and could photograph from a safe distance.

The little corella is another one of those birds that goes by several names. If you prefer, you can also call it the bare-eyed cockatoo, the blood-stained cockatoo, the short-billed corella, the little cockatoo or the blue-eyed cockatoo. It is native to Australia and southern New Guinea (this one was photographed on Kangaroo Island in South Australia). The downy feathers have been used in the past to make head and armbands for traditional ceremonies and dances.

I figured why not keep things in Australia for another day. This is a green ringtail possum, also photographed in the Atherton Tablelands area of Queensland in the northeast area of the country. Like other possums, the green ringtail is strictly nocturnal. Unlike other possums, the green ringtail practices what is known as coprophagy. What is coprophagy you ask? The practice of eating one’s own feces. Here’s to not being a green ringtail possum.

This is an oldie — and a rarity — from my trip to Australia back in 2005. I was searching for platypus early one morning in the town of Yungaburra when I spotted this Lumhotz’s tree kangaroo in a tree across the river. Usually nocturnal, this guy was up a little past his bedtime. They almost look more like a primate than a marsupial and they are only found in northeastern Queensland.

The red kangaroo is the largest kangaroo species in Australia, topping out at about 200 pounds. It’s also one of the more common. I encountered this guy in a rugged area of South Australia in Flinders Ranges National Park.

I figured it was just about time I posted another koala. In a rare moment of wakefulness (they spend up to twenty hours a day sleeping), I photographed this one on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Note the spectacular overbite.