Fun Facts About Australia - Animals
- There are 1500 species of Australian spiders.
- If you read about our spiders you might not like this: the average person swallows three spiders a year.
- We have over 6000 species of flies, about 4000 species of ants, and there are about 350 species of termites in Australia.
- The combined mass of all termites in the world is more than ten times the mass of all people.
- Termites are also called white ants, but they're not ants, in fact not even closely related to ants.
- Australia has the world's largest population of wild camels with one hump.
- The Tasmanian Devil does exist, and it has the jaw strength of a crocodile.
- Sharks are immune to all known diseases.
- There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.
- No part of Australia is more than 1000 km from the ocean and a Beach. (The point in the world that's the furthest from any ocean would be in China.)
- Australia has the world's largest cattle station (ranch). At 30,028 km2 it is almost the same size as Belgium.
- Population density in Australia is usually calculated in km2 per person, not people per km2.
- Australians have 380,000 m2 per person available. Yet well over 90% are cramming into our coastal cities.
- We call Australian's from Queensland "banana benders", and people from Western Australia "sandgropers".
- Tasmania has the cleanest air in the world.
- The Great Barrier Reef has a mailbox. You can ferry out there and send a postcard, stamped with the only Great Barrier Reef stamp.
- The Australian Alps, or Snowy Mountains as they are also known, receive more snow than Switzerland.
- Melbourne has the second largest Greek population in the world, after Athens.
- Imagine the fully welded rails of the Ghan track weren't restrained properly: on a hot Outback desert day they would expand at 200km/hour and at the Darwin end they'd stick out 1.1 km into the ocean.
- Star gazing: under ideal viewing conditions, like in the Australian Outback, the naked eye can detect about 5,780 stars.
- The Sydney Opera House roof weighs more than 161,000 tons.
- The Great Barrier Reef is the largest organic construction on earth.
- Termite mounds are the tallest non-human constructions on earth.
- Yulara, the Aboriginal name of the Ayers Rock Resort, means "crying", "weeping". Nasty tongues say because that's what visitors do when they see their bill...