Escorted small group tour of Australia's megafauna

The term “megafauna” is usually applied to large animals over 100kg. In Australia, however, megafauna were never as large as those found on other continents, and so a more lenient criterion of over 40 kg is often applied.

We still have Megafauna alive, examples are some Kangaroo spieces, the common Wombat, the Emu and Southern Cassowary and the Salts- and Freshwater Crocodiles as well as some spieces of Goannas.

Examples of extinct Megafauna includes the In Australia, Megafauna included the huge wombat-shaped Diprotodon, the Nordenskjoeldi’s Giant Penguin, the thylacine (Tasmanian wolf or Tasmanian tiger), giant short-faced kangaroo, the marsupial lion and giant goanna Megalania.

While many Megafauna were carnivorous, some Australian fruits are called ‘megafauna fruits’ because the only animals capable of eating them and spreading the seeds are extinct. Some of the large fruits in our forests only make sense if they had giant animals to swallow them and spread their seeds.

There is a phenomenon called Island gigantism where small animals evolve to huge sizes when they invade an island. The absence of large mammalian predators means the smaller herbivores need not be small to hide. Without selective pressure for smallness, the herbivores are free to grow to huge sizes.

The term ‘Outback‘ comes from the idea of ‘Back country’, which was used in the early colonies (with recorded uses as early as 1800) to refer to land beyond the settled regions. With the spread of settlement, ‘Outback’ came into use to describe the inland, arid and semi-arid centres of Australia. ‘Outback’ was first used in print in 1869, when the writer clearly meant west of Wagga Wagga, NSW.

‘Outback’ has a number of variants, including ‘Back o’ Bourke’, ‘Back of Beyond’, ‘Back Country’, and ‘Beyond the Black Stump’ (the precise location of which varies according to local folklore!).

The Australian coat of arms consists of a shield containing the badges of the six Australian states symbolising federation, and the national symbols of the Golden Wattle, the kangaroo and the emu. By popular tradition, the kangaroo is accepted as the national animal emblem.

The extinction of megafauna around the world was probably due to environmental and ecological factors. It was almost completed by the end of the last ice age. It is believed that megafauna initially came into existence in response to glacial conditions and became extinct with the onset of warmer climates. At the end of the last ice age, Australia’s climate changed from cold-dry to warm-dry. As a result, surface water became scarce. Most inland lakes became completely dry or dry in the warmer seasons. Most large, predominantly browsing animals lost their habitat and retreated to a narrow band in eastern Australia, where there was permanent water and better vegetation.

Some claim the animals could not have survived changes in climate, including a shift some 70,000 years ago when much of the southwestern Australia landscape went from a wooded eucalyptus tree environment to an arid, sparsely vegetated landscape.

Others have suggested the animals were hunted to extinction by Australia’s earliest immigrants who had colonized most of the continent by 50,000 years ago, or a combination of overhunting and climate change.

Procoptodon is an extinct kangaroo that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch and the largest known kangaroo species that ever existed, stood at about 2 m and weighed about 200–240 kg.

The Long-tailed Planigale is Australia’s smallest marsupial and one of the world’s smallest mammals. Approx 6 cm in head-body length, 5 cm long tail, and weighs av 4.3 grams.

The youngest Megafauna site in Northern Australia is South Walker Creek, Mackay, Queensland, which is the youngest megafauna site in Northern Australia and once home to at least 16 species of giant animals.

The Queensland Outback can get pretty hot! Summer temperatures average between 35-40 degrees, though some towns can get a lot hotter than this. Temperatures cool down between March and October, with the coolest month (July) averaging in the mid-late 20s in most towns.

Reflecting this, Odyssey Traveller has scheduled our Outback Queensland tours to leave from July – October and Feb – March 2020 and 2021.

Odyssey offers a collection of small group outback tours for seniors across the States. These Australian tours are typically tour packages for 12 to 16 days in duration. Australian Tour packages include tours of western Australia for wildflowers or a Kimberley tour from Broome with the Bungle bungle range. In SA, Flinders range and Wilpena pound, Eyre peninsula, also North Queensland and the native wildlife, or Cameron Corner including Birdsville.

Odyssey, seeks on any Australia trip to go off the beaten track, the Australia vacation with a difference. We offer Outback tours for seniors that could be considered an iconic Australia trip that might include Ayers rock (Uluru), Blue Mountains, the east coast to the gold coast and Brisbane or Cairns and the Great barrier reef for example.