How do Australian savannas differ from African ones?
Australia, unlike Africa, does not have large animals such as giraffe, zebra and wildebeest. In Australia, much of the plant material is eaten and re-cycled by insects such as termites! More than 40 thousand years ago, however, there were large grazing animals in Australian tropical savannas, such as giant wombats and kangaroos. Debate continues as to why these animals became extinct. Some argue that it was mainly because of climate change, others say that the ancestors of Australian Aborigines who arrived on the continent at least 40 thousand years ago, could have hunted them into extinction, and many say it was a combination of climate change and human action that removed many of the large animals from the Australian savannas.
