Australia becomes arid
The continent's interior turns to desert and its fauna adapts to scarcity.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2.8 million years
- Known to
- ± 500 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
As Australia continues north and global climate dries, the rainforest that had covered much of the continent contracts to the eastern margins and the interior becomes arid. The marsupial fauna adapts: kangaroos shift from browsing forest forms to hopping grazers — a gait that is metabolically cheap at speed because tendons store and return energy — while other lineages evolve extreme water conservation and torpor. Fire-adapted eucalypts and acacias come to dominate the vegetation.