Adventure Ausrama Blog

Early European settlers were amazed by the emu.  Governor Lachlan Macquarie was so impressed that, in 1822, he sent two emus as gifts to the Governor-General of India, the Marquis of Hastings.  When Macquarie set sail from Australia back to England on the ship Surry, he wrote that voyaging with the passengers were "pets" that included six emus, travelling in roomy well aired pens  well-aired pens. The animals were to be given as gifts to friends and patrons of Governor Macquarie back in England. Unfortunately many of the pets, including one of the largest emus died on the trip. In l791 John Harris, who arrived in the new colony as a surgeon, wrote that emus were swifter than the fleetest of greyhounds. Emu eggs were described as dark Green with little black specks the of pins.  It is a little larger than goose eggs.  The emu is Australia’s largest bird standing up to 2 metres high. lt has wings but it can°t fly. lt can run really quickly around 50 kilometres per hour. The le

Jurassic Park is getting closer to reality. Australian scientists have managed to get DNA from fossilised eggshells of extinct birds. The Team warns though that bringing ancient creatures back to life is a long way off. Particles of fossilised eggshells from Australia, New Zealand and Madagascar were used in the research. A target species was the Moa bird which lived in New Zealand into the 18th century. Another was the Elephant Bird which went extinct in Madagascar during the 17th century. Older birds were also worked on: the New Zealand Duck, Australian Owl and an Emu which was 19,000 years old. Work on older fossils did not come up with usable DNA, but the relatively recent ones did give promising results. Techniques used were the usual reduction of samples and polymerase amplification. These were very short pieces of DNA obtained from minute samples. Eggshells were found to be even better than bones and hair for storing DNA. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http:/

The argument continues over whether humans were responsible for the extinction of megafauna. Giant emus, large kangaroos, marsupial lions and diprodons were destroyed by Aboriginals in Australia according to new research. This claim is based on fungi in dung of herbivores. For 130,00 years, despite dry periods, charcoal and pollen levels in dung remained the same until Aboriginals arrived. This means that climate change was not responsible for the extinction of megafauna 40,000 years ago. There is a problem with this. When Captain Cook arrived in Australia the Aboriginal population was extremely low. Forty thousand years ago there would have been only a few hundred thousand of them. How could this low number possibly destroy all of the large animals? Some megafauna would have survived in regions where Aboriginals did not go. Australia is a very large continent. It is claimed that when the megafauna died out the vegetation changed with more fires, and eucalyptus forests spr

"In my opinion, the Government is out of touch with animals." http://vistacomputersolutions.blogspot.com/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .