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From an ecological perspective the Australasian realm is a distinct region, parts of which have a common geologic and evolutionary history. The entire area has experienced a long period of biological isolation from other regions, and thus harbors a great many unique plants and animals.
Australia is a country and an island located in Oceania between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean. It shares its name with the country that claims control over it. Properly called the Commonwealth of Australia, its territory consists of the entire continent and smaller outlying islands.
Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically , physiogeographically , philologically , and ecologically , where the term ...
The Tuha'a Pae or Austral Islands (French: Îles Australes or Archipel des Australes) are the southernmost group of islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the South Pacific. Geographically, the Austral Islands consist of two separate archipelagos.
Water in the Southern Ocean south of, for example, New Zealand, resembles the water in the Southern Ocean south of South America more closely than it resembles the water in the Pacific Ocean. The Southern Ocean has typical depths of between 4,000 and 5,000 m (13,000 and 16,000 ft) over most of its extent with only limited areas of shallow water.
Surrounded by the Indian, Pacific, and Southern oceans, Australia is separated from Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea by the Arafura Sea, the Timor Sea, and the Torres Strait, from Island Melanesia by the Coral Sea, and from New Zealand by the Tasman Sea.
The original drawing of the line in Wallace's paper. One of the earliest descriptions of the biodiversity in the Indo-Australian Archipelago dates back to 1521 when Venetian explorer Pigafetta recorded the biological contrasts between the Philippines and the Maluku Islands (Spice Islands) (on opposite sides of Wallace's Line) during the continuation of the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, after ...
The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul (/ s ə ˈ h uː l /), Australia-New Guinea, Australinea, or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, [1] [2] [3] is located within the Southern and Eastern hemispheres. [4]