Each year, hungry plant-eating animals do billions of dollars of damage to valuable plants. We need prevention methods that don’t involve killing them.
Antechinuses are tiny marsupials famous for their intense sex lives. Now, researchers have documented another unusual behaviour – the cannibalism of their own species.
We found three previously unknown species of mulgaras hiding in museum collections – but all three have been driven to extinction since European colonisation of Australia.
Contributors to the WomSAT website have already reported more than 23,000 wombat sightings. We can use the data to cut the risks to wombats – and anyone with a smartphone can help.
From the cuscus with the fancy coat, to the wallaby often sporting a single white glove, a wide variety of life evolved on island homes in the south-west Pacific.
It’s not as well-known as the Hills Hoist clothesline, but here’s another Aussie invention worth celebrating: Glide poles are reconnecting severed landscapes for a special group of marsupials.
Mammals have evolved flight more often than birds. By studying the genes of the sugar glider, biologists have found a ‘molecular toolkit’ for flight membranes that’s been in us all along.
Julien Louys, Griffith University; Gilbert Price, The University of Queensland; Mathieu Duval, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), and Robin Beck, University of Salford
80,000 years ago, Australia’s landscape was dominated by much larger versions of today’s marsupials – including enigmatic and enormous wombats.