Wonders of marsupial parenthood
Parenthood takes on many different forms in the animal kingdom. Here are three marsupial joeys with fascinating early lives.
We have four species of quoll in Australia. Don’t let their pink noses and thick, soft fur fool you: Australia's 'native cats' aren’t much like cats at all. Quolls are actually tree-climbing, den-dwelling marsupials.
Growing up to 125cm (including a long tail) and 5kg, the Spotted-tail Quoll (or Tiger Quoll) is now the largest native carnivore left on the mainland (excluding dingoes). The Northern Quoll is the smallest quoll, with males weighing around 1kg (females are appreciably smaller).
Quolls have black to fawn fur, white spots, long tails and sharp teeth. Their genus name, Dasyurus, means ‘hairy-tail’.
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Spotted-tail Quoll. Photo Andy Townsend.
Where do quolls live?
The quolls’ story is one of dramatic decline. Quolls were once relatively abundant across most of Australia.
Before European settlement at least one species of quoll inhabited most parts of the country.
The Western Quoll, for instance, was once found across 70% of Australia. It’s now mostly confined to the far south-west of Western Australia. The Eastern Quoll, once widespread in south-east Australia, has been extinct on the mainland since the 1960s.
For these reasons, the Eastern, and Northern Quoll are listed as Endangered, while the Spotted-tail Quoll and Western Quoll are Near Threatened according to by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Where they remain, quolls use a wide range of habitats. They live in coastal heathlands, sub-alpine woodlands, temperate woodlands and forests, riparian forests and wet sclerophyll forests.
Quoll behaviour
Females are smaller than males and have smaller home ranges. Male quolls can move up to several kilometres a night in search of food.
Quolls often create dens in tree hollows, rock crevices, underground burrows, fallen logs and (for Northern Quolls) even termite mounds.
Quolls generally shelter in these dens during the day and hunt alone at night. They’re generalist, opportunistic carnivores – in other words, they eat a wide variety of food, as long as it’s meat!
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Western Quoll. Photo Georgina Steytler.
Quolls generally breed during winter. Being marsupials, quoll young (pups) spend the first part of their lives in a pouch. Females have between five and eight pups per litter.
Western Quoll pups outgrow the pouch after nine weeks, after which the young are left in a den while the female searches for food. Young reach independence and leave the den at around five months.
The Spotted-tailed Quoll can eat medium-sized birds and mammals, such as possums and rabbits. Smaller quoll species eat insects, reptiles, frogs, birds’ eggs, small birds and mammals.
Some Quolls can climb high into trees to capture prey, including tree-roosting sleeping birds. Northern Quolls are the smallest, most aggressive and most arboreal (tree-based) of all quoll species, Eastern Quolls are the least.
Quolls eat carrion (dead animals), and are sometimes seen scavenging around campsites, rubbish bins and roadsides. Unfortunately this increases their risk of being hit by cars.
Most quolls have short life-spans, generally living only 2 to 4 years in the wild (longer in captivity). Like many dasyurids (dunnarts, quolls, planigales, antechinus and the like), quolls have an extraordinary mating system, in which most reproduction occurs in the first year of life. After an exhaustive effort, most male Northern Quolls die after their first mating season, with females only faring marginally better. Few live beyond their second breeding season.
Threats to quolls
The primary threats to quolls are habitat loss and fragmentation.
Through harvesting timber and clearing native vegetation, humans have reduced suitable habitat for prey, and limited the number of hollow logs suitable for dens.
Foxes and cats prey on quolls and directly compete for food. Other human-induced impacts include illegal shooting, car accidents and the ingestion of poison baits set for dingoes and wild dogs. Cane toads have also decimated the Northern Quoll population, though some suggest they’re beginning to learn to avoid the poisonous toads.
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Eastern Quoll. Photo Heath Holden.
What’s Bush Heritage doing?
We’re proud to have all four species of quolls on land we help protect. Spotted-tail Quolls and Eastern Quolls are present on our Tasmanian reserves and partnership properties. The Northern Quoll is commonly recorded in the Uunguu IPA (our Wunambal Gaambera partnership), and has been caught on camera at Carnarvon Station Reserve and Western Quolls have been recorded on monitoring cameras in the Fitz-Stirling region of south-west, WA as well as our mid-west reserves Eurady and Hamelin.
Quolls are highly elusive and not easily seen or trapped in traditional wildlife traps. For this reason, we’ve used ‘quoll sniffer dogs’ to help confirm their presence and distribution on Carnarvon Station Reserve and also to search for quolls on Yourka Reserve, which provides perfect habitat.
We protect quoll habitat, by maintaining native vegetation and conserving hollow logs. Our fire management helps preserve quoll habitat and important habitat features, while our feral predator management, aimed at foxes and cats, also reduces competition and the pressure of predation.
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Quoll. Photo Steve Parish.
