Drilling Into Eden

摘要

Some call it Australia's Galapagos, others Australia's Ark. Barrow Island, 75 miles off the coast of Western Australia, was last connected to the mainland some 8,000 years ago, During those millennia of isolation this 90 square miles of grassy hills dotted with termite mounds and surrounded by coral reefs has evolved a collection of critters found nowhere else on Earth. Among the 24 endangered species unique to Barrow: the burrowing bettong, spectacled hare-wallaby, golden bandicoot, perentie lizard, pseudoscorpion and blind spider. In 1910 it was designated a nature preserve.