But Morton has an idea for how to save the rats that remain: Ditch their European names and reclaim them as uniquely Australian creatures. (Bearcat? Catshark? These 9 animals have misleading names.) ...

Naturalists have long been interested in the strange animals of Australia, the duck-billed platypus, spiny Australian anteater, the kangaroo, wombat, emu, casowary. Last week, Albert Sherbourne Le ...

Eighty-six years ago today, the last known thylacine died in a zoo in Hobart, Tasmania. To commemorate the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger, as it’s commonly known, September 7 is now National ...

Australia hosts a dizzying array of venomous creatures — including spiders, snakes, jellyfish, octopuses, ants, bees and even platypuses. But why do so many Australian animals wield this bioweapon?

(Also see "Primitive and Peculiar Mammal May Be Hiding Out in Australia.") Other Australian animals have suffered, too: Of modern-day mammal extinctions, mammals Down Under account for about a ...

But the first paper to chemically assess Australian animals’ luminophores, or the chemical compounds involved in their photoluminescence, was published only around 50 years ago, in 1971. Identifying ...