Mukia maderaspatana is a species of plant in the family Cucurbitaceae. The species is found throughout Indomalaya and Meganesia.
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Others have used Meganesia with different meanings: travel writer Paul Theroux included New Zealand in his definition and others have used it for Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. Another biologist, Richard Dawkins, coined the name Australinea in 2004. Australia–New Guinea has also been used.e.g.
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Melodinus is a genus of plant in the family Apocynaceae, first described as a genus in 1776. It is native to Indomalaya, Meganesia and various islands in the western Pacific.Flora of China Vol. 16 Page 147 山橙属 shan chen shu Melodinus J. R. & G. Forster, Char. Gen.
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At these times New Guinea, Tasmania, the Aru Islands, and some smaller islands were joined to the Australian mainland. Biogeographers call this enlarged Greater Australian continent Sahul (Ballard, 1993) or Meganesia. West of Wallacea, the vast Sunda Shelf was also exposed as dry land, greatly extending the Southeast Asian mainland to include the Greater Sunda Islands of Sundaland. However, the islands of Wallacea (primarily Sulawesi, Ambon, Ceram, Halmahera and the Lesser Sunda Islands) always remained an island world, imposing a barrier to the dispersal of terrestrial vertebrates, including early hominids.
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The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul (), Australinea, or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, consists of the landmasses which sit on Australia's continental plate. The name "Sahul" takes its name from the Sahul Shelf, which is part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent. The continent includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea, which consists of Papua New Guinea and Western New Guinea (a province of Indonesia). Situated in the geographical region of Oceania, Australia is the smallest of the seven traditional continents.
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The islands of Wallacea have few land mammals, land birds, or freshwater fish of continental origin, which find it difficult to cross open ocean. Many bird, reptile, and insect species were better able to cross the straits, and many such species of Australian and Asian origin are found there. Wallacea's plants are predominantly of Asian origin, and botanists include Sundaland, Wallacea, and New Guinea as the floristic province of Malesia. Similarly, Australia and New Guinea to the east are linked by a shallow continental shelf, and were linked by a land bridge during the ice ages, forming a single continent that scientists variously call Australia-New Guinea, Meganesia, Papualand, or Sahul.
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The Torres Strait itself was previously a land bridge which connected the present-day Australian continent with New Guinea (in a single landmass called Sahul, Meganesia, Australia-New Guinea). This land bridge was most recently submerged by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice-age glaciation approximately 12,000 years ago, forming the Strait which now connects the Arafura and Coral seas. Many of the western Torres Strait Islands are the remaining peaks of this land bridge which were not completely submerged when the ocean levels rose. The islands and their surrounding waters and reefs provide a highly diverse set of land and marine ecosystems, with niches for many rare or unique species.
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Before the 1970s, the single Pleistocene landmass was called Australasia, derived from the Latin , meaning "southern", although this word is most often used for a wider region that includes lands like New Zealand that are not on the same continental shelf. In the early 1970s, the term Greater Australia was introduced for the Pleistocene continent. Then at a 1975 conference and consequent publication, the name Sahul was extended from its previous use for just the Sahul Shelf to cover the continent. In 1984 W. Filewood suggested the name Meganesia, meaning "great island" or "great island-group", for both the Pleistocene continent and the present-day lands, and this name has been widely accepted by biologists.e.g.
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The country is situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire, at the point of collision of several tectonic plates. Geologically, the island of New Guinea is a northern extension of the Indo-Australian tectonic plate, forming part of a single land mass which is Australia-New Guinea (also called Sahul or Meganesia). It is connected to the Australian segment by a shallow continental shelf across the Torres Strait, which in former ages lay exposed as a land bridge, particularly during ice ages when sea levels were lower than at present. As the Indo-Australian Plate (which includes landmasses of India, Australia, and the Indian Ocean floor in between) drifts north, it collides with the Eurasian Plate.
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Mainland Australia showing the continental Sahul Shelf (light blue) extending to the islands of New Guinea in the north, the island of Timor in the northwest, and Tasmania in the south The continent of Australia is sometimes known by the names Sahul, Australinea, or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, and consists of the landmasses which sit on Australia's continental plate. This includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea, which comprises Papua New Guinea and Western New Guinea (a province of Indonesia). The name "Sahul" takes its name from the Sahul Shelf, which is part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent. The term Oceania, originally a "great division" of the world, was replaced by the concept of Australia as a continent in the 1950s.
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