Fauna of Australia in Australia, feeding on sea grass in coastal areas. The destruction of sea grass beds is a threat to the survival of this species. Eleven species of seal—family Pinnipedia—live off the southern coast. Australia and its territories are home to around 800 species of bird; 45% of these are endemic to Australia. The fossil record of birds in Australia is patchy; however, there are records of the ancestors of contemporary species as early as the Late Oligocene. Birds with a Gondwanan history include the flightless ratites (the emu and southern cassowary), megapodes (the malleefowl and Australian brush-turkey), and a huge
Tasmanian emu agreed with the mainland birds in measurements and the external characters used to distinguish it—a whitish instead of black foreneck and throat and an unfeathered neck—apparently are also present, albeit rare, in some mainland birds. There are suggestions the bird was slightly smaller than the modern emu, but in conflict, other evidence (including descriptions of Pleistocene remains) indicates that both are similar in size. Today, it is apparently only known from subfossil bones, the skins which once existed having been lost. The Tasmanian emu was, as the mainland birds, hunted as a pest. In addition, the practice of setting fire