Eastern bettong returns to mainland Australia

Thanks again to Brad Wolfe for spotting and sharing this great news.

A rare marsupial long disappeared from Australia's mainland is now thriving near Canberra, with reports the population is fat and happy.

Last year a group of 17 eastern bettongs were brought to protected forest areas in Canberra from Tasmania, their first appearance on the mainland for 80 years.

Adrian Manning, from the Australian National University, says health checks show the small members of the kangaroo family are faring well, with about 35 bettongs leaving the pouch and about 20 more young on the way.

"They've hit the ground running, digging for truffles - which is what they do - and they've actually put weight on" he said.

"The fact that six months in, most of the animals seem to be doing well, putting on weight, breeding, those are all signs that they're happy.

"I don't think we could really have expected any better than we've got, so the whole team's really pleased."

This year, researchers will examine how the bettongs adapt to the environment, and what affect they have on the ecosystem.

And there are plans to eventually move some of the bettongs to sanctuaries and restoration projects in other parts of south-east Australia.

Long-beaked echidna may call Australia home

An exciting discovery in the dusty bowels of one of the world's most foremost museums may mean the critically endangered Long-beaked Echidna, long thought only to exist in New Guinea, did in fact one call Australia home - and may well still!

Our thanks to CFZ Australia reader Brad Wolfe for bringing this news to our attention.

A team of researchers recently discovered the specimen of the long-beaked echidna, an egg-laying mammal previously thought to exist only in New Guinea, laying in a drawer, long forgotten.

The 1901 specimen, described in the Dec. 28 issue of the journal Zookeys, had been shot and stuffed by an Australian naturalist named John Tunney, who came across the echidna on Mount Anderson, a mountain in a vast, arid and sparsely populated region of northwest Australia, while on an expedition for a British collector. Tunney, who was trained in taxidermy, stuffed and delivered the specimen, which was later bequeathed to the Natural History Museum.


Once they realized the echidna had been spotted in recent history, the team went back to Aboriginal communities in the West Kimberley region and found some women remembered watching their parents hunt long-beaked echidnas.

"They remembered that there used to be an echidna in the area that was much larger, and they pointed to pictures of the modern long-beaked echidna from New Guinea," Helgen told LiveScience.