Australia+and+lizard+adaptations

__Adaptations and the Australian Climate __ Animal adaptations develop in order to make that animal excel in their environments. They can be structural, morphological and behavioural and by changing these, their ecology is altered. Through the movement of super continents to form today’s world the goanna/varanus species has been distributed throughout Australia, Asia and Africa. This pattern is due to the once present Gondwana and Laurasia landforms. Due to movements of tectonic plates and oceanic crust these continents moved apart (Bridgeman, H., //et al//, 2008). To survive, adapt and thrive in a sub-topical continent that is crossed by the Tropic of Capricorn, where the middle is arid desert and dry plains, an animal has to be very enduring, efficient and ecologically adapted. The Australian continent is subject to the change of the Southern Oscillation and the effects its index plays on the change of environment (Bridgeman, H., //et al//, 2008). Thirty of around 60 species of the monitor lizards are located in Australia (Guarino, 2001). Within Australia, monitors live in virtually every climate zone and occupy most of the habitat niches on the Australian continent. As a result of the effects of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), seasonal changes in rainfall and lengthened episodes of drought these habitat niches can be subject to frequent changes (Bureau of Meteorology, 2011). 

The large variation and strong negative events in the SOI in early 2000’s posed a threat to many of the Australian animal species. However, the lace monitor remains virtually unaffected by low or limited rainfall events. Historically eighty percent of Australia receives less than 600 millimetres of rainfall per year, relatively low rainfall for a continent to receive. The Australian climatic zones are divided up into 6 catogories, equatorial, tropical, subtropical, desert, grassland and temperate.