ustralia's big native animals such as the kangaroo and the koala are world famous but our smallest marsupials are not as widely known. Even most Australians are unaware of the large number of tiny marsupials that live in our forests, deserts and other environments. Most are shy of human attention and avoid built environments.
Most are also only come out at night and some are rare or near extinction.
WHAT IS A MARSUPIAL? 
MARSUPIALS are mammals, meaning they are warm blooded and give birth to live young which they feed on milk secreted from mammary glands. However, marsupials differ from other mammals in that they give birth to premature young that are then brought to maturity by being attached to a nipple. The name marsupial is derived from a Latin word, marsupium meaning pouch, because many of the 334 species of marsupials have a flap of skin resembling a pouch that protects their immature young. Australia has about 200 native species of marsupials, ranging from the smallest, the tiny long-tailed planigale (12cm from head to the tip of its long tail), to the red kangaroo (standing 1.4m tall with a metre-long tail).
BROWN ANTECHINUS (ANTECHINUS STUARTII) Size: 185mm-250mm (snout to tail) Habitat: Queensland and NSW coastal plains and forests up to the inland mountains Description: Chocolate brown fur on its back and lighter fur underneath. Often called a marsupial mouse because of a superficial resemblance to the common house vermin, it has a much pointier and longer snout than a mouse. It is an agile tree climber and lives in tree hollows on a nest of dry leaves. It feeds on small invertebrates, hunting for them in leaf litter and tree cavities at night.
BANDICOOTS AND BILBIES THE name bandicoot refers to all of the marsupials in the family Peramelidae, although some members of the family Thylocomidae, or bilbies were also called "rabbit-eared bandicoots" despite not being true bandicoots. Bandicoots and bilbies both belong to the order Peramelemorphia. The smallest living bandicoot is the western barred bandicoot, Parameles bougainville.
WESTERN BARRED BANDICOOT (PARAMELES BOUGAINVILLE) Size: 230mm-335mm Habitat: Once widespread in semi-arid bushlands this bandicoot is now extinct on the mainland and is found only on Bernier and Dorre Islands in Shark Bay in WA.
Description: Mid brown coat with darker bands of colour across its back, on its snout and around its eye. A nocturnal animal that mostly eats insects, small vertebrates and some plant material. It is a solitary creature that builds well concealed nests beneath bushes.
BILBY (MACROTIS LAGOTIS) Size: 500mm-840mm (snout to tail) Habitat: Arid areas of Australia's interior.
Description: Distinctive large rabbit like ears, silky blue-grey and white fur tinged with red-brown, and a black and white tail.
Also known as the greater bilby, rabbit-eared bandicoot and the dalgyte. A smaller species, known as the lesser bilby (Macrotis lecrura), is thought to be extinct. Bilbies live in burrows to escape the heat of the day and emerge at night to feed on worms, insects, roots and fungi. The bilby is considered to be an endangered species, vulnerable to feral cats, foxes, dogs and habitat destruction by rabbits
NEW HOLLAND MOUSE (PSEUDOMYS NOVAEHOLLANDIAE) Size: 145mm-195mm Habitat: Lives in coastal areas and dry sclerophyll forests in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania Description: Grizzled grey-brown fur turning into buff coloured flanks with pale grey underneath and a dusky brown tail that is whitish underneath with a dark tip. Lives in underground burrow systems, which it shares with other members of its species, emerging at night to eat seeds, stems, fungi and arthropods. Often mistaken for a house mouse it has a much longer tail than a mouse.
BRUSH-TAILED PHASCO GALE (PHASCOGALE TAPOATAFA) Size: 315mm-495mm Habitat: Found in most Australian states in semi-arid sclerophyll forests, monsoonal forests and woodlands. It forages in trees and builds nests in stumps and tree branches Description: Also known as a tuan or wamberger, its most distinctive feature is its black bottlebrush tail. A nocturnal beast that forages in trees and probes the undergrowth and forest floor for invertebrates, small mammals, birds and lizards. It also sips nectar from flowering trees.
PLANIGALE THERE are five species of Planigale including the Paucident planigale (Planigale gilesi); the Long-tailed planigale (Planigale ingrami); the Common planigale (Planigale maculata); the New Guinean planigale (Planigale novaeguineae); and the Narrow-nosed planigale (Planigale tenuirostris). The smallest of them all is the Long-tailed planigale which is only 100mm to 125mm long from its snout to the tip of its tail. It lives in seasonally flooded grasslands and woodlands in the north of Australia. It hunts small invertebrates and vertebrates at night, searching through leaf litter for its prey.
DUNNART Among the smallest marsupials there are 21 different species of dunnart in Australia, including the stripe-faced dunnart (Sminthopsis macroura) with its distinctive stripy face, and the common dunnart (Sminthopsis murina) which is actually uncommon. The smallest is the fat-tailed dunnart which is 105mm-160mm. The fat tail that gives the creature its common name is actually a way of storing fat that can be burned as energy when food sources are scarce. It is common across central and southern Australia in a range of different habitats but is vulnerable to introduced species and habitat destruction.
PLAINS MOUSE (PSEUDOMYS AUSTRALIS) Size: 190mm-260mm Habitat: Once widespread across the arid plains of Central Australia it is now mostly confined to areas around Lake Eyre and Lake Torrens. Once thought to be extinct in NSW a specimen was found again in   March this year near Broken Hill, the first sighting in NSW in 80 years.
Description: An odd-looking long footed, large eared creature, resembling a mouse with sandy-grey or silvergrey fur. It eats mostly seeds and stems along with some arthropods.
MUSKY RAT KANGAROO (HYPSIPRYMNODON MOSCHATUS) Size: 155mm-270mm tall with a tail 125mm-160mm Habitat: Lives in rainforest in northeast Queensland. It is mostly terrestrial but can make its way through the low branches of trees Description: This is the smallest species of kangaroo or macropod. It is also the only macropod with five toes. It is small and squat with dark brown fur with a reddish tinge.
Its name derives from its distinctive musky smell. It forages on the floor of the forest for fallen fruit, fungi and insects.
MOUNTAIN PYGMY POSSUM (BURRAMYS PARVUS) Size: 230mm-265mm Habitat: Australian Alps Description: Upper fur is grey, tinged with brown, underside and cheeks are cream or light brown. Unlike other possums, the mountain pygmy possum lives mostly on the ground, in the crevices of rocks rather than in the trees. It scurries around at night, feeding on insects over spring and summer - mostly bogong moths - building up the fat reserves it draws on while hibernating over winter.
It was known only from fossils until a living specimen was found in 1966.
WESTERN PYGMY POSSUM (CERCARTETUS Size: 140mm-195mm Habitat: Found in the bushlands and arid scrub areas of southern WA, Mallee areas in SA.
Description: The size of a small mouse it has a bright cinnamon to grey colour above with a whitish underside. There is a dark brown ring around its eye. It is a nocturnal animal that hunts small arthropods and eats nectar and makes a small spherical nest from bark and leaves in tree hollows.
TASMANIAN OR LITTLE PYGMY POSSUM (CERCARTETUS LEPIDUS) Size: 123mm-145mm Habitat: Arboreal creature found in wet and dry eucalypt forests in Tasmania as well as in the semi-arid Mallee of SA Description: The world's smallest possum species, mostly grey with a white underside, it has a pink, sparsely furred tail. A nocturnal creature it hunts arthropods, skinks and drinks plant nectar. To deal with the coldest parts of the year the Tasmanian pygmy possum can enter a state of torpor where its metabolism slows and its body temperature drops. It is not quite like hibernation because it only lasts for a few days at a time.
DID YOU KNOW?
Although bandicoots are native to Australia and New Guinea, they were named after the Indian bandicoot rat, which is not related and which bears only a faint resemblance to the Australian marsupial.
DID YOU KNOW?
Marsupials do not have a placenta in the uterus to nourish the developing embryo which is why their young are born undeveloped and need to be nourished on the mother's nipple.
DID YOU KNOW?
The monito del monte or mountain monkey is not a monkey but a South American marsupial. It is genetically more closely related to Australian marsupials than to American marsupials.
Its genetic similarity is evidence that the continents of South America and Australia were once linked via Antarctica.
SOURCES: WEBSITES Australian Wildlife Conservancy www.australianwildlife.orgOffice of Environment & Heritage NSW www.environment.nsw.gov.au Tasmania Parks and Wildlife www.parks.tas.gov.au
BOOKS A Field Guide To The Mammals Of Australia by Peter Menkhorst and Frank Knight (Oxford) Encyclopaedia BritannicaEditor: Troy Lennon Phone: 9288 2542 Email: troy.lennon@news.com.au Design: Fadzil Hamzah