Southern Brown Bandicoot

About

A small, nocturnal, ground-dwelling marsupial once common across coastal southern Australia, now with a more limited and fragmented distribution; it is listed Endangered under the EPBC Act even though the species overall is IUCN Least Concern, and the isolated Fleurieu Peninsula population in South Australia is a particular conservation focus.

How to spot it

Look for fresh conical diggings in leaf litter and soil rather than the animal itself, as it is strictly nocturnal; if seen, it has coarse grizzled dark greyish-brown fur, a creamy-white underside, a pointed snout and a short tail around 13 cm long. Favours dense ground cover in heath, shrubby woodland and scrub, and in South Australia is a key focus of Fleurieu and Eyre Peninsula recovery programs.

Found in

• Cox Scrub Conservation Park
• Canunda National Park
• Lincoln National Park
• Flinders Chase National Park
• Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park