Australia (continent) Australia (continent) The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul, Australinea or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, consists of the land masses which sit on Australia's continental shelf. This includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea (comprising Papua New Guinea and two Indonesian provinces). Situated in the geographical region of Oceania, it is the smallest of the seven traditional continents in the English conception. The continent lies on a continental shelf overlain by shallow seas which divide it into several landmasses—the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait between mainland
Smallest organisms chameleons ("B. minima"), 14–19 millimetres for male Mount d'Ambre leaf chameleons ("B. tuberculata") and 15–16 millimetres for male "B. micra", though females are larger. Of the aforementioned geckos, "S. ariasae" was first described in 2001 by the biologists Blair Hedges and Richard Thomas. This dwarf gecko is endangered and lives in Jaragua National Park in the Dominican Republic and on Beata Island ("Isla Beata"), off the southern coast of Hispaniola in the Dominican Republic. The world's smallest turtle is the speckled padloper tortoise ("Homopus signatus") from South Africa. The males measure , while females measure up to almost . The