Bushie blog

Kirsty Dixon will change your tune about bats. The University of Tasmania PhD candidate is studying microbats that call the Tasmanian Midlands home.The eight bat species in Tasmania are all forest...

In the Midlands of Tasmania there are five bettongs named Egbert, Percy, Dot, Cyril and Maud. They’re not pets, but they wear collars. They’re not criminals, but Riana Gardiner tracks...

Kirstin Proft is enamoured by all things bettong. She’s a PhD student from the University of Tasmania. Kirstin is one of five students investigating how different native animals feed, move...

When Glen Bain moved to Hobart to start his PhD, he quickly learned the calls of the 12 bird species endemic to (only found in) Tasmania, like the Green Rosella ...

Rowena Hamer walks through the supermarket with a trolley full of Seafood Basket, a cheap cat food. While she claims she looks like a crazy cat lady, the PhD candidate insists that it’s all...

The Tasmanian Midlands is a patchwork of colours. White sheep are peppered across a paddock. There are red roofs, silver sheds, and swathes of brown soil, cultivated for crops. The patches of...

Why walk when you can hop? Why hop when you can gallop?Today we found a Spinifex Hopping-mouse (Notomys alexis) in one of the University of Sydney's pitfall traps on Ethabuka Reserve. Their...

Since 1990, the University of Sydney has used pitfall traps to understand which mammals and reptiles live on the reserve. The Desert Ecology Group follows strict protocols on the humane and...

This afternoon, while opening the pitfall traps, I was visited by the devil… a Thorny Devil! Thorny Devils appear frightful, but in reality they’re harmless, slow-moving ant...

Penguins waddle for weeks on end. Waterbirds travel thousands of kilometres on the wing. Wildebeest cross vast savannahs in search of food. But, out in the Simpson Desert, a very different kind of...

When you study a secretive nocturnal species, you might be shocked to find yourself squarely in the scientific spotlight.In August, Tim Doherty, Edith Cowan University PhD graduate and Bush...

Fat and scattered, the first raindrops confused me. They sounded like the resident possum that's been galloping around the shearers quarters ceiling. Then the storm cloud broke, and you couldn...