Phantasmagorical Phascogales

It is strange when you come across a creature you don't recognize in a landscape that is familiar. It is a bit like a dream, where something occurs in your imagination that appears real, yet is not.

On discovering that there is a brush-tailed phascogale (phascogale tapoatafa) population at Hester Brook, I was a bit surprised, not having seen one of these previously common (now near threatened) native marsupials before.

The phascogale is an exemplar in Australian adaptiveness, and extreme vulnerability, in light of introduced species (such as man). The tuan or wambenger (as they are known) are uniquely designed arboreal feeders and breeders for the South West Jarrah forest, provided it is not fragmented.

The forest area at Hester Brook (where this little guy was found) is perfectly suited for them, with open understory, many older hollow trees and good insect life. Being a 60 hectare property this is the ideal territory size for the female and the fact that the block is connected by migration corridors allows suiter males to travel in the breeding season to find a female. As the males only live for a year and die shortly after breeding, and the females live only up to three years, disruption in the breeding migration corridors means local populations quickly diminish.

Reading the summary of the description other interesting facts include:

When alarmed, the brush-tailed phascogale taps its forefeet repeatedly against the bark of a tree.

Females may live to three years in the wild by which time their canine teeth are blunt and their incisors worn nearly to the gum.

The brush-tailed phascogale is an agile tree climber, and its hind foot can be rotated 180 degrees at the ankle to aid it with its climbing.

What a tenuous hold in the landscape these perfectly adapted tree climbers have ...