Page:The origin of continents and oceans - Wegener, tr. Skerl - 1924.djvu/112

86 animals also are represented in the relationship, as well as earth-worms, which shun the frozen soil. This affinity originates from the time when Australia was still connected to India. According to Fig. 15, this connection had already been broken in the Lower Jurassic.

The second faunal element in Australia is very well known, for to it belong the singular mammals—the Marsupialia and Monotremata—which are so sharply differentiated from the fauna of the Sunda Islands (the Wallace-Limit of the mammals). This element of the fauna shows kindred relationships to that of South America. For example, marsupials now live not only in Australia, the Moluccas and various Pacific islands, but also in South America (a single species of opossum is found even in North America); there are also known fossil from North America and Europe, but not from Asia. Even the parasites of the Australian and South American marsupials are the same. E. Bresslau emphasizes the fact that three-quarters of the approximately 175 species of the Geoplanidæ among the flat-worms are found in these