Is Australia a (Biogeographic) Island?

I was always taught there were seven continents, Australia being one of them. However, I've been doing this long enough to know many of my international viewers might've been taught something else; that Australia is an island within the continent of Oceania. This has in turn generated a lot of confusion surround Australia and its status as a landmass. Of course as we all know, these terms are meaningless, which is why lately we've been using biogeographic realms instead. I hope by using these alternative units for dividing the earth, we might finally get to an answer as to whether Australia is an island!

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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

[abbycaldwell]

I love the detail of Steve Irwin being the reference for human scale on the size comparisons

[shaungambrill]

It's not well known, but the largest marsupial carnivore that has existed in Australia wasn't the Thylacine, but rather Thylacoleo carnifex - roughly large jaguar/small tiger sized, . Worth a video of it's own, along with Australian megafauna in general.

[EndreaiYT]

I think New Zealand deserves a biogeography video of its own, seeing how many clades of birds independently became flightless here (Kiwis, Kakapos, Moas, Takahes, Wekas, etc…)

[Alan_Hans__]

Australia's deadliest carnivore, the dropbear, wasn't mentioned :(
The height of the eucalyptus trees gives the dropbear a massive advantage when it comes to attacking ANYTHING.

[KhAnubis]

Oh wow, now I’m imagining what human history would’ve been like had Australia been slightly further north or south. (Also congrats on the house purchase!)

[stevenh]

You forgot to highlight Tasmania when you highlighted Australia - no doubt making a lot of Tasmanians sad :(

[surface]

I love that you use Steve Irwin as a yardstick when discussing heights of birds and humans. It's always great to see that he's still remembered. One of our best exports, that guy.

Also, as far as I can remember, I was taught that Australia was an Island Continent.

[robertb]

It’s really interesting how the biogeographic realms also reflect cultural divides not evident on the continents, like North-Africa vs Sub-Saharan Africa, or the USA/Canada and Latin America.

[SymphonicConvergence]

will we eventually get a video on living islands? (massive animals that have their own self contained ecosystems) or would there be not enough examples to draw from?

[allonzehe]

One of the most unique channels on YouTube. This is so esoteric and niche and I absolutely love it. So many channels become bland and same-ish, but this one is staying awesome!

[sumwun]

I myself live in australia and we get taught that our country is both and island AND a continent which is kinda odd but anyway have a good 1

[tomatosoup]

Small correction, mammals never stopped being synapsids. We still are synapsids, just derived ones, in contrast to the more basal ones like the cynodonts you showed.

[philwood]

As an Australian, I was taught that Australia is the biggest island, and the smallest continent at the same time. This was primary school education in the 70's.

[loonyt]

I think New Zealand has been seperated from Australia far too long and by too large a gap for them to realistically be considered part of the same biogeographic realm, if anything they share a common original mainland of antarctica.

[camfunme]

What I was taught in school in Australia, was that the country is the Commonwealth of Australia (shortened to Australia) located on the continental shelf of Australia. Thus making it both an island and a continent.

[marcopanzironi]

You said that New Guinea is the only highly productive region of the Australasian Realm, but what about Tasmania? It dwells in the temperate region, so it doesn’t have to deal with the same problems as the Australian mainland; plus it’s filled with lush temperate Rainforests

[frostyguy]

New Zealand is a realm of its own. In Australia, *marsupials* dominate every ecological niche, but in New Zealand (until humans arrived) *birds* dominated every ecological niche. I'd go so far as to call New Zealand the last place on Earth where dinosaurs continued their reign after the K-T Event.

[pronumeral]

"lower productivity deciduous forest" - Australia's forests are almost entirely evergreen (eucalypts are evergreen). Only a few species are dry-season-deciduous (eg: the Illawarra Flame Tree), and only one species is winter-deciduous (nothofagus gunnii, endemic to Tasmania).

[ahha]

I love how you show the picture of human as the legend Steve Irwin aside with the Australian animals

[TheOnlyCaprisun]

This channel is my favourite, I have watched these videos almost religiously for 3 years.