The word Gondwana means "The land of the Gonds" - which refers to an ancient Indian tribe. The continent was formed 250 million years ago, after breaking off from the super continent "Pangea" and heading south. The section of Gondwana that now makes up Australia was much warmer and further south. It also had a higher humidity that made way for the large amounts of rain forest that covered the continent. Evidence that supports the theory of Gondwana can be related to the large rain forest that spread out over it. There have been a large number of fossilised leaves found from the tree Glossopteris, a tree that is thought to have been found over most of the continent. These fossilised leaves have been found in parts of Australia, South America, India, Africa and Antarctica. Also amongst the forest were ferns and cycads, which made up the majority of the plant life found during this period of time. There were no flowering plants during this period.

Dinosaurs roamed the land and sky during this period, so the first marsupials to appear in Gondwana were nocturnal and arboreal. This allowed them to survive with minimal contact with dinosaurs and other predators. They lived in the trees, very rarely leaving them to walk the earth.

As time moved on, the continent began to slowly break up. This was due to continental drift. This caused the sea movement to change as well as the climate. Around 50 million years ago, the southern continents that we see today began to emerge from the super continent. Africa, South America and India broke away from Antarctica, and each other, and headed north. Australia was the last continent to break away from antarctica, and when it did, it also slowly drifted north.

As the climate of the continent changed, so did the life found in this area of the world. The waters began to dry up and the new continent that is now Australia began to get drier. As it did so, much of the plant life found here began to have difficulties in reproducing using spores, as it used too much water. Because of this, a huge evolution in plant life came about - flowering plants began to appear around areas of Australia. The first family of flowering plants to come out of Gondwana are the Proteaceae and the Winteraceae. Nowadays, these are common around areas such as Africa, Australia, South Africa and Asia, but no fossils are found in areas that were not part of Gondwana.
One of the first flowering trees is thought to be the South Beech Nothofagus. This tree has been found in the rain forests around Australasia and South America. It has not, however, been found in any areas of India ar Africa, suggesting that it appeared after these two continents had broken away from Gondwana. Although, the climate had become drier and warmer, most of the flora found around this period (Cretaceous) relied on a fairly cool, wet environment in order to survive.

Further break-up of Gondwana led to Australia becoming an island. It was the only major land mass that broke away on its side of Gondwana, and so there was little chance of contact between Australia and other major continents formed by the separation. Australia was now isolated, and so began its incredible evolution of flora and fauna.

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