Echidnas of Australia and New Guinea
Echidnas of Australia and New Guinea

Author: M. L. Augee

Publisher: UNSW Press

Published: 1993-01

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 9780868400464

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The echidna is one of the world's most extraordinary creatures. It has often been called a 'living fossil' and a 'primitive' mammal because of its unique ability to lay eggs and produce milk. Relatives of these bizarre creatures were walking the earth before primates had descended from the trees. And yet echidnas and their fellow monotreme, the platypus, are exceedingly well adapted to their environmental niche. This book describes the echidnas' lifestyle and the adaptations that have made it so biologically successful. Drawing on two centuries of scientific literature and years of devoted echidna research, the authors have come up with a fascinating book which will appeal not only to students of natural history but to the general reader. Accompanying the text are some remarkable anatomical illustrations by Anne Musser.

Echidna
Echidna

Author: M. L. Augee

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 0643092048

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"This book is based on Echidnas of Australia and New Guinea, first published as part of the Australian Natural History series"--Preface.

Neurobiology of Monotremes
Neurobiology of Monotremes

Author: Ken Ashwell

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2013-12-01

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 0643103163

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Neurobiology of Monotremes brings together current information on the development, structure, function and behavioural ecology of the monotremes. The monotremes are an unusual and evolutionarily important group of mammals showing striking behavioural and physiological adaptations to their niches. They are the only mammals exhibiting electroreception (in the trigeminal sensory pathways) and the echidna shows distinctive olfactory specialisations. The authors aim to close the current gap in knowledge between the genes and developmental biology of monotremes on the one hand, and the adult structure, function and ecology of monotremes on the other. They explore how the sequence 'embryonic structure › adult structure › behaviour' is achieved in monotremes and how this differs from other mammals. The work also combines a detailed review of the neurobiology of monotremes with photographic and diagrammatic atlases of the sectioned adult brains and peripheral nervous system of the short-beaked echidna and platypus. Pairing of a detailed review of the field with the first published brain atlases of two of the three living monotremes will allow the reader to immediately relate key points in the text to features in the atlases and will extend a universal system of brain nomenclature developed in eutherian brain atlases by G Paxinos and colleagues to monotremes.

Wildlife of Australia
Wildlife of Australia

Author: Louise Egerton

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2009-09-01

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 1741760496

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There is nothing to beat the extraordinary wildlife of Australia. Its colourful parrots, its venomous snakes, its abundance of hopping marsupials and the strange, egg-laying Platypus - these are just a few of the players in a story that began hundreds of millions of year ago. Many members of Australia's wildlife live nowhere else on Earth. They are unique, the result of evolution on a continent that has been geographically isolated from the rest of the world for 38 million years. Wildlife of Australia is an account of how these animals have developed in response to changing climates and habitats. It describes their day-to-day habits, where they live, how they find partners and care for their young, and how they protect themselves and find food and shelter. Superbly illustrated with over 550 colour photographs by renowned wildlife photographer Jiri Lochman, the book also contains a list of scientific names, good zoos and wildlife parks, useful websites and books, and a comprehensive glossary. Wildlife of Australia reveals the fascinating worlds of the animals that live all around us on this ancient land but remain largely unnoticed.

Mammalian Sexuality
Mammalian Sexuality

Author: Alan F. Dixson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-06-03

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 1108426182

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The first detailed account of post-copulatory sexual selection and the evolution of reproduction in mammals.

The Mammals of Australia
The Mammals of Australia

Author: Ronald Strahan

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 756

ISBN-13: 9781876334017

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This manual includes entries on all mammals in Australia. Each species' account summarizes behaviour and habitat, diet, reproduction and growth, factors that lead to death and a distribution map. Most are also illustrated with a colour photograph.

Relics
Relics

Author:

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-10-31

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 0226568709

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World-renowned zoologist and photographer Naskrecki leads readers on a time-lapse tour that renders Earth's colossal age comprehensible, visible in creatures and habitats that have persisted, nearly untouched, for hundreds of millions of years.

History of the Australian Vegetation
History of the Australian Vegetation

Author: Robert S. Hill

Publisher: University of Adelaide Press

Published: 2017-03-01

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 1925261476

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The Australian vegetation is the end result of a remarkable history of climate change, latitudinal change, continental isolation, soil evolution, interaction with an evolving fauna, fire and most recently human impact. This book presents a detailed synopsis of the critical events that led to the evolution of the unique Australian flora and the wide variety of vegetational types contained within it. The first part of the book details the past continental relationships of Australia, its palaeoclimate, fauna and the evolution of its landforms since the rise to dominance of the angiosperms at the beginning of the Cretaceous period. A detailed summary of the palaeobotanical record is then presented. The palynological record gives an overview of the vegetation and the distribution of important taxa within it, while the complementary macrofossil record is used to trace the evolution of critical taxa. This book will interest graduate students and researchers interested in the evolution of the flora of this fascinating continent.