استراليا

4/27/2012, 8:16 pm

Tessellated pavement in Tasmania is a rare feature formed by the erosion

of flat sedimentary rock. The effect is a result of parts of the pavement

eroding more quickly than the joints, creating a rectangular "pan" formation.

A morning glory is one of the rarest cloud formations in the world and

occurs most often in northern Australia near the Gulf of Carpentaria.

It's a low-lying tube-shaped cloud that appears to roll through the sky

like a baker's rolling pin, sometimes stretching up to 1000km.

The horizontal waterfalls in the Kimberleys in Western Australia are

a natural phenomenon caused by water surging between two narrow

island gaps. The tides create the effect of a flat waterfall flowing

horizontally across the face of the ocean.

Gantheaume Point in Broome, WA, is home to dinosaur footprints

more than 130 million years old. They can be seen in the rocky reef

area at low tide.

At the beginning of the wet season on Christmas Island more than

150 million red crabs move from inland shelters to the shore for their

annual breeding season. During this time, usually from October to November,

the entire forest floor, and even the roads that run through it, are swathed

in a sea of red in one of the most spectacular animal migrations in the world.

Little did engineers know the retaining wall of the Barossa Reservoir

in Adelaide would become one of the Barossa Valley's star attractions

(after the wine, of course). The Whispering Wall has a unique acoustic

effect where words whispered on one side can be clearly heard at the

other, more than 100m away.

Eastern horseshoe bats can be spotted in parts of Australia, particularly

in Queensland. They are distinguished by the horseshoe-shaped fleshy

area around their nose.

The blobfish lives off the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania.

They're rarely seen by humans, though, because they inhabit deep

water at depths between 600 and 1200m

Gymea lilies are spectacular Australian native plants with large red flower

heads atop a single stem stretching up to 6m.

Tawny frogmouths are a uniquely Australian species of the frogmouth,

a nocturnal bird often mistaken for an owl. This picture shows a baby

tawny frogmouth, whose white feathers turn grey and brown with age.