Australian Native Plant and
 Wildlife Time-Line (juniors)

We could put up a long list of numbers to tell you how old the earth is, and when the animals were here, but that doesn't always make much sense.  Maybe you haven't lived that long yourself.  How old, is old to you? 

10 years?   50 years?   1000 years ?

What if we imagined the earth was 10 years old from when it is believed to have started (4.6 billion years ago).  Lets see what Australia was like.  We have not included every native animal or plant discovered in Australia just the major events. 

10 years ago the earth was mostly a big hot ball of molten material, dust and gas.  It was beginning to form a crust. 

 A much larger ball of gas and dust had collapsed on itself and formed the hot shining star we call the Sun. 

Other balls were circling the sun too. They are the planets that make up our solar system.

On our Earth at this time you could not breathe, there were no seas or land, it was just hot!  To make it worse meteorites, asteroids and comets crashed into our planet.  There was no life here. 

On our ten year scale it was about 8 years and a 1 month ago that the molten material  cooled down which allowed rocks to form and the Earth's crust to get thicker. Water from steam collected on the surface of rocks forming shallow seas.  Scientists believe that this is when the first living things called bacteria appeared. 

A few days later (around 2 million years) you were really cool stuff if you were pond scum.  You would have belonged to a family of blue-green algae.  But you are only a single celled organism with no nucleus. 

A few more days later, 8 years and 15 days ago, most of the Darling range in Perth was formed.

5 years and 7 months ago Wave rock in Hyden was formed. (But not the shape we see it as now).

                               It is mostly granite.

Brachiopods from Western Australia

Bivalves from Western Australia

Following this time came animals with shells and skeletons like jawless fish followed by the first invertebrates such as centipedes and spiders.

It wasn't until last year or 1 year ago in our 10 year scale that plants showed up in Australia. (some scientists think that plants were here even earlier).  Our Earth had now been around for 9 years.  The Stirling Range in the South West of Western Australia was formed when part of the Earth's crust buckled.

Photographed at the Western Australian Museum.

10 months and 21 days ago land animals with vertebrates such as amphibians but not frogs (look at a book mentioned below for pictures), tree sized plants, and insects were in Australia.  Volcanoes were wide spread throughout what was Australia at that time.  Australia was not yet the shape we know it today.  It had a lot of forming still to do.

9 months 7 days ago brachiopods, molluscs, bivalves and corals different than the earlier ones and winged insects were here in Australia.

About 7 months ago swamps and tree ferns which are now fossils, make up our coal that we have in Collie, Western Australia.  And in Western Australia small sharks have been found from this time, along with ammonites.

A lot of Australia was covered in ice.

Now a massive extinction took place in Australia where more than 80% (8 out of every 10 animals) died out.

More volcanic eruptions occurred in Australia. 

6 months and sixteen days ago the period known as the Triassic happened. It went until 5 months and 10 days ago.
In Western Australia fossils of marine (sea) reptiles and a front paddle of a swimming lizard have been found.
The weather was now warmer, plants spread south and Australia gets its first cockroach.  Other fossils of butterflies and other insects have been found in Queensland and Sydney. 
In the later Triassic period dinosaurs appeared in Australia.  At this time Australia was still joined to a very large continent called Gondwana.  In this continent was Australia, Africa, India, Antarctica, South America, Arabia, Iran, New Guinea and New Zealand.

 This clipart picture is similiar to an Anklosaur Minmi of Australia. 

This is a clipart picture too but it could be similar to the Hughenden sauropod that was 20 metres in length. 

Click here for a printer friendly mask or colouring-in of an Allosaurus 

Also flying reptiles like the pterosaurs, dolphin like animals and turtles along with other sea creatures and corals were alive at this time.  A fossil platypus and feathers from a bird have also been found from this time.   Much of the middle of Australia was covered in sea.

3 months and 3 days ago Antarctica separated from Australia leaving Australia the basic shape that it is today. 

2 months and 14 days ago rivers were formed throughout the south west of Western Australia. 

by 1 month and 21 days ago ammonites, marine reptiles, pterosuars, and dinosaurs became extinct.

Now it was the age of the mammals.

Fossils of echidnas, wombats, bandicoots, thylacine, koalas, possums, giant kangaroos, and marsupial lions have been found from this time.  Please remember other fossils have been found from Australia. We just haven't listed them all here.   The south-west of Western Australia was a moist to tropical climate causing rain bearing westerly winds.

As time went on rodents, whales, and bats were all here in Australia.

 Frogs and fish, native eucalypt and acacia (wattle) plant fossils have been found from around 12 days ago.

11 days and 21 hours ago the Simpson desert that we have now was a rainforest. Previously it had been an inland sea.  Bird fossils of owl-let nightjars, pelicans, little grebes, ducks, lungfish and flamingoes have been found as lakes are a good place to preserve fossils.  Giant birds that looked like emus, called Mihirungs, and giant lizards called Megalania, which were 5 metres long, survived up until  1 day and 10 hours ago.

At this same time Australia collided with the Sunda and Pacific regions.  Australia was also hot, maybe hotter than what we have today and parts of Australia became deserts.  Volcanoes were erupting in central and eastern Australia.  Along came the Diprotodon the largest marsupial mammal to ever live, and eagles and Mallee fowl (similar mallee fowl still live in Western Australia but is now endangered after all this time.)  But it wasn't long until all the giant native animals were extinct.  The aboriginals had arrived and they saw some of these giant reptiles and native animals before they were gone.  Also around this time was another world wide ice age where water was trapped in glaciers. 

Diprotodontoids were probably plant eaters.

A Diprotodon skeleton.  Fossils have been found in Tasmania.

 Approximately 17 hours ago sand dunes, caves and the Pinnacles in Western Australia developed along the coast.  Here at the Pinnacles you can see where the sand level is now lower as the winds have swept the sand away.  Changes are always happening to the land. 

8 minutes ago you could still walk out to Rottnest Island off the coast of Western Australia as it was still connected to the main land.  Aboriginals used to walk this area. 

13 seconds ago (or 200 years) discoverers and settlers arrived and with them came domestic animals, introduced plants, and fire that changed the native animals and plants more than all the previous changes of time. 

How old are you? If you are 10 years old then blink really quickly, this is how long you have been alive in this time scale.

Scientists are making new discoveries about Australia and some of this information will change as new things are learnt about this fascinating land and its native animals and plants.

Please checkout the books at your local library and see the amazing native animals of our ancient land.  We regret that we are not allowed to show you the pictures on this page because of the copyright laws. For book reading ideas check out the books we used here.

 We would like to thank the Geological Museum of the University of Western Australia for allowing us to photograph the fossils shown here, and the State Museum of Western Australia for allowing us to use the pictures of the Diprotodon and the Allosaurus.