Australia was the last continent to form, the smallest of the seven. Though it is completely surrounded by water, the center is consumed by vast tracts of parched, infertile land. This is the lowest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent. Its extreme climate and isolation has shaped astounding evolutionary adaptations. This place has created its own rules of nature.
The wetlands and rainforests of Australia are ecosystems that hold links to the continent's ancient past. These places are extremely diverse. Lush green ranges in remote southern isles allow life forms to flourish unhindered. Rainforests create prime real estate for a convergence of species, all battling for territory.
The vegetated areas of the smallest continent are uniquely Australian. It's estimated almost a fifth of Australia is covered in dry forest. The dry forests, colloquially deemed "the bush", is concentrated mostly along the east coast, with small pockets in the southwest and northern extremities of the country. These are the kingdoms of the most common of Australian mammals, marsupials.
As a freestanding continent, Australia is surrounded by two major oceans and five seas. There are 22,000 miles of coastline on the mainland alone. These are the magical boundaries where elements meet. The animals that thrive in the spaces between land and sea have weird and wonderful rituals to adjust and battle for supremacy when these strange worlds collide.
The Pacific Ocean's mysterious deep sea terrain is as varied as the land mirrored above. From hulking sea mounts, island atolls, and lagoons, to a monumental network of a barrier reef so long it can be seen from space, the complex ecosystems of reefs are the lifeblood of the Pacific Ocean.
Of the Pacific's 25-thousand islands, roughly two-thirds are in the Coral Triangle. The Triangle is a small western Pacific pocket from Indonesia, north of the Philippines and across to the Solomon Islands. Though marveled for its reefs, within the volcano-lined bays, another astonishing ecosystem is emerging.
The Great Barrier Reef, which runs parallel to the coastline of northeastern Australia, is so big it can be seen from space. A chain of 3,000 individual reefs and some 900 islands, this system is greater in size than the United Kingdom, Holland, and Switzerland combined. This living superstructure is so significant to the world, it's deemed one of its seven natural wonders.
The Pacific Ocean spans 9 and a half thousand miles of latitude across vastly varying temperatures and topography. With such far-reaching boundaries, it's little wonder that the 25,000 islands within the Pacific Ocean are so vastly different. Across the Pacific, long chains of atolls support life on the remnants of ancient volcanoes.
Antarctica is surrounded by the strongest ocean current on the planet, extending from the surface all the way to the sea floor. It's one of the many variables that keeps this continent isolated, as well as the coldest place on Earth. It creates pathways for polar inhabitants to travel to other shores and determines where marine life will migrate, mate, raise their young, and hunt.
The South Pole has just two seasons, summer and winter. The warmer months draw a myriad of wondrous animals to Antarctic waters. Winter transforms Antarctica into a vastly different place. The extreme weather forces animals to flee for warmer waters. The entire continent swells, and contracts. Blizzards set in, but on distant shores, the renewal of life, and the hunt, continues.
It's barely fathomable that all the land on Earth was once connected. Roughly 250 million years ago, the land masses we recognize as today's continents broke away from what is now the Antarctic and rode atop tectonic plates across the southern hemisphere. Clues to these ancient connections between the southern continents are hidden throughout the animal kingdom today.
The Antarctic continent contains 90% of all ice on the planet. Deep in the center, conditions are so extreme that few forms of life survive. Even on the coast, seals and penguins need to enter water to warm up, and flee when Antarctica is plunged into 24-hour darkness each winter. The sheer inhospitable nature of the continent means the icy islands that surround it play a vital role.
