from Part I - Ancient invaders
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2014
Introduction
At some point, possibly as much as 55 Ma, but perhaps only as recently as sometime in the last few million years, the first pteropodid bat flew in from the north and crossed the coast of the Australian continent. This animal was arriving on a continent that was very different to the Australia we are familiar with today. Depending on exactly when it arrived, the continent was almost definitely a wetter, more forested place than it is today (see Chapter 12). If it arrived early, then both the flora and the fauna were still only beginning to evolve into the suite of species that we are familiar with and that flying fox may have been among the earliest of the eutherian mammals on the continent. If it arrived later, then it would have joined a diverse group of rats and other bats already present in the continent’s rich monotreme, metatherian and eutherian mammal communities. Irrespective of when exactly they arrived, the first individuals were arriving on a continent with a biota very different to that which they would have previously encountered.
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