Fishes. Lung fishes have two species of Protopterus that live in the rivers and lakes of tropics. Chondrostei is represented by 10 species of Bichir (Polypterus). Electric eel of family Mormyridae has electric organs in tail. There are cat fishes, carps, characins and generally the fish fauna is diverse. Fauna shows overwhelming similarity with the Oriental Region.

SUBREGIONS OF AFRICAN REGION 1. East African. This includes tropical Africa and tropical Arabia. Fauna contains 145 families of 1. East African. This includes tropical Africa and tropical Arabia. Fauna contains 145 families of vertebrates. There are rhinoceros, zebra, giraffe, cheetah, spotted hyena and lions. 2. West African. West African. Western Africa up to Congo includes forests. Fauna has 134 families of vertebrates that include, gorilla, chimpanzee, monkeys, baboons, flying squirrel. 3. South African. South African. Southern portion of Africa. Fauna contains 133 families of vertebrates. There are ostriches and secretary birds. Mammals include golden mole, elephant shrew, jumping mice, aardvark and naked mole rat that leads subterranean existence. 4. Malagasy. Malagasy. Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and neighbouring islands. Fauna has 86 families out of which 8 are endemic. There are aye-aye, lemurs and common tenrec. Helmet birds and cuckoo rollers and rough-tailed snakes are endemic. The flightless bird Dodo which was related to flightless pigeon became extinct in 1681 due to hunting by man and egg predation by dogs, pigs and monkeys.

## FAUNA OF AUSTRALIAN REGION

This region includes Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, New Zealand and islands east of Wallace’s Line. New Guinea is tropical with rain forests. Eastern Australia is covered with lush green forests, Western Australia is desert and there are grasslands in the middle. Mammals. Eight of the 9 families of marsupials are unique. There are 52 genera of 6 families of marsupials that are unique and are not found in the Neotropical Region. Marsupials show parallelism with their counterpart placentals in other parts of the world in their evolutionary modifications. Placental mammals that were introduced by man or some of them immigrated themselves include rodents and bats, rabbits, foxes, rats, mice, dingo dogs, cats, pigs and murid mice. Monotremes are represented by Ornythorhynchus and Echidna. Birds. There are 58 families of birds out of which 44 are widely distributed. Species having wide range are trogons, hawks, kingfisher, cuckoos, parrots and pigeons. Shared with Oriental are frogmouths, wood-swallows, flowerpeckers and megapods. There are 10 families of endemic birds which include cassowary, emu, kiwi, lyrebird, bower birds, honey suckers, birds of paradise, magapods and cookabura or laughing jackass that feeds on lizards and snakes. Birds not present are pheasants, finches, barbets and woodpeckers. Reptiles. There are pythons, biting snakes, elepid coral snakes, geckos, skinks, agamid lizards, scale- footed lizard and Komodo Dragon, crocodiles and turtles. Chelyd turtles and snake-necked turtles possess strikingly long necks. Sphenodon pounctatus is found exclusively in New Zealand. Amphibia. There are no tailed amphibians. Common toads are absent and frogs are few. Tree frogs belong to family Hyalidae which is also found in the New World and Palaearctic but absent in African