Australia is a unique continent, notably because it is really just a large
island, and its isolation from other land masses has resulted in wildlife very unlike the other continents. You probably are aware that many of its mammals are marsupials, mammals that carry their young in pouches. Many of these animals, such as the kangaroos and koalas, are not carnivorous, but there are plenty of carnivorous marsupials. They fill the
ecological niche that on other continents is filled by cats. There were no true cats in Australia until the Europeans settled there, and the vicious marsupial “tiger cat” of eastern Australia is not a true cat.
