Australian sandy desert habitat
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Australian Animal Habitat Sandy Desert
Transcript of Australian sandy desert habitat
Australian Animal Habitat Sandy Desert
The Australian Sandy Desert has many plants to support the animals, birds, reptiles and insects that live in this habitat.The dominant plant has stiff spikey leaves, survives in the poorest soils, has 3 metre long roots that helps prevent erosion and gives shelter to all types of creatures including many species of lizard but don’t drive over them or the finger length spikes will puncture your tyre.
A 100 years ago many more creatures lived in this habitat like the Burrowing Bettong and the Golden Bandicoot. That was until cats, foxes and rabbits were introduced to Australia. By 1960 the Bettong was extinct on the mainland and the Mala and Quoll are very rarely seen.
Termites grow fat and juicy on the decaying Spinifex leaf litter and are the favourite food of the lizard. The lizards grow fat and juicy from eating so many termites. Who do you think would eat the lizards?
Left: The Burrowing Bettong survived on some islands and are now being introduced back onto the Australian mainland.
By 2000 it was thought that the Golden Bandicoot was extinct on the mainland except for a small colony in a nature park in the Kimberley, Western Australia. Feral animals were removed from several islands and the protected bandicoots were rehomed. On Barrow island there are now between 90,000 and 130,000 Golden Bandicoots thanks to the work of conservationists.
