Amazing Australia A Traveler's Guide to Common Plants and Animals

About this book

Ideal for the nature-loving traveler, Amazing Australia is a handy pocket guide to the most unusual and the most common birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, plants, and trees of Australia. This focused guide features over a hundred of the bizarre and the beautiful, the curious and the downright strange.

Written with a traveler's eye for the wonderful weirdness the world can offer, Amazing Australia gets right to the heart of the natural miracles that define Australia's coasts and deserts. Discover the danger lurking in a lovely rainforest plant that can leave hikers with pain that last for eighteen months. Learn how to avoid the redback, a venomous spider that panicked an entire country.

The origins of evocative names like "blood gum" are explained. Information explains how echidnas and ants survive in such a harsh environment. Invasive species like the cane toad and the cane beetle are discussed. The uniqueness of the country's most beloved creatures like the kangaroo and the koala takes center stage in Amazing Australia.

Packed with information that comes from being in the country for an extended time, Amazing Australia will entertain as well as inform. Details about how Aboriginal tribes used different plants, animals, and trees are included. Settler's histories are touched on for the most common species.

Contents

- Introduction
- Flora
- Fauna
- Mammals
- Marsupials
- Monotremes
- Other Mammals
- Insects and Arachnids
- Reptiles
- Amphibians
- Marine Life
- Birds
- The Dance: An Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime Guide to Living with Passion Adapted from Seven Sisters: Spiritual Messages from Aboriginal Australia

Customer Reviews

Biography

Laine Cunningham is an award-winning author who spent six months camping alone in the Australian Outback. Her first novel, The Family Made of Dust, is set in the red desert. Woman Alone is the women's travel adventure memoir she wrote about her experience.