Australia: Life on the edge

Yes, Australia is both a continent and a country. It is the only continent made up of a single nation, since every other continent is divided among multiple countries, or in Antarctica's case, claimed by none at all.

No, New Zealand sits on its own continent called Zealandia, separated from Australia after the two landmasses drifted apart long ago. Only a small share of Zealandia rises above the ocean, and New Zealand makes up its largest visible piece.

The name comes from the Latin word australis, meaning southern, tracing back to Terra Australis, a hypothetical southern land early mapmakers assumed must exist to balance the continents up north. Explorer Matthew Flinders popularized the shortened form, and British authorities later adopted it as the continent's official name.

Its animals evolved in near-total isolation after the continent drifted away from the other southern landmasses, cutting off contact with species developing everywhere else. That isolation let older evolutionary lines, like egg-laying mammals and pouched marsupials, survive and diversify largely undisturbed, producing species found nowhere else on the continent.