Category: mammals/marsupials

Green Ringtail Possum and Baby

Christina

 

Spring is here:

Symplocos trees are in full flower:

so are Hovea shrubs:

Many birds are starting their breeding business:
Eastern Spinebills are courting and one of the females is picking up tiny bits of eggshell and fluffy nesting material, Bridled Honey-eaters are mating, Mrs Riflebird appears to be feeding a nestling (instead of eating banana on the spot, she is flying away with big chunks in her beak), there is already an immature White-naped Honey-eater coming to the bird bath every day, Eastern Whipbirds are travelling through the undergrowth with 3 offspring in tow, the list goes on.
Marsupials also are showing up with either extended pouches (Pademelons, Swamp Wallabies and Brush-tailed Possums) or babies on foot, like our Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroo (see the previous blog).
On Sunday we saw a patch of olive-green on top of a Cissus vine along our creek. That wasn’t a bit of flora, but a Green Ringtail Possum with a very small baby!


They were out rather early, while it was still light (they are normally nocturnal animals), but mum was probably very  hungry, having to produce milk for her offspring.
Green Ringtail Possums don’t sleep in tree hollows, like a lot of other possum species, but spend the day curled up in a tree, relying on their excellent camouflage, like this one:

The pink nose gave it away, though!

Ringtail Possums have a very prehensile tail, which they use like an extra hand.

They were both feeding on the Cissus leaves, which is a favourite with many possums and tree-kangaroos.

Every now and then the little one briefly made its way into the pouch for a drink:

Baby Tree-kangaroo

Christina

A week ago we saw a tree-kangaroo in a small tree close to our cabin. It looked like the one which has been in the area for the last couple of months.

To our delight, she had a baby with her! It must have left the pouch only recently, and was eagerly climbing around in mum’s vicinity.

They were in a Red Mahogany sapling, a very suitable tree for practising: easy to grip due to the small circumference and the rough bark. Mum was feeding on Smilax leaves, one of her favourite foods.

Hopefully, they’ll hang around for a while!

 

 

more about Hypsies

Christina

We do enjoy  watching the Musky Rat-kangaroos  (Hypsiprimnodon moschatus) in our garden, and sometimes we tease them with a very tempting morsel:

Musky Rat-kangaroos are mainly fruit-eaters (although they were quite keen on a dead White-tailed Rat, and one musky actually managed to drag the cadaver off into the forest), and they absolutely love avocado.

The seed is big and slippery, of course, so they cannot grab it with their teeth. No matter, from which side it tries to grab the seed, it just cannot get a hold of it:

Tree-kangaroos

Christina

Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroos (Dendrolagus lumholtzi), one of the two Australian species (the other one, Bennett’s Tree-kangaroo, only occurs further north), are rare in the Kuranda area. Their stronghold are the Atherton Tablelands, and we are privileged to have them on our large forest property near Mount Hypipamee National Park, south of Atherton.
Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroos, despite their size (like a small koala), are difficult to spot in the rainforest.

Tree-roo in distance

On our property, where the forest is more open, the resident male can sometimes be seen making his way along the creek -either on the ground or amongst the trees.

Tree-roo, climbing
Recently, we spotted him in a tree near our cabin while we were having lunch on the veranda.

Tree-roo, full view

Initially, when he noticed us, he was a bit nervous, as indicated by his tail-swishing, but he soon relaxed.

 

 

Tree-roo, close-up

After more than an hour he went on his way again.
Tree-kangaroos are not strictly nocturnal, they can often be observed during the day, too.

Red-legged Pademelons, July 2012

Christina

Red-legged pademelons (Thylogale stigmatica) are usually solitary animals, but might be feeding together occasionally.
They graze on our lawn, but mostly browse on leaves, flowers and also eat fruit ( in this photo: native mangosteen).

At the moment two of the females have pouch young, who have started to explore the outside world.
( Joeys have visible hair at 19-21 weeks, take their first steps outside the pouch- indicated by dirty feet- at 22-26 weeks and leave the pouch at 26-28 weeks of age).

 

They first leave the pouch in the typical fashion of all kangaroos: they fall out.
The mother is in control by either tightening her pouch muscles to firmly keep the baby inside or by relaxing the pouch opening and letting the joey fall out.
She can even actively tip it out by contracting the pouch – when she wants to clean it without the young inside, for example.

This young female has barely reached sexual maturity, being just one year old and has attracted the interest of one of the big males.
Characteristic for kangaroos is his behaviour: he approaches her, sniffs her cloacal region and her pouch opening (often not too gently!). He also grasps her near the base of her tail. ‘Chesting’, standing in front of her and grasping her head, is another courtship behaviour.
He is making the soft, clicking sounds, she is not ready to mate and rejects him by moving away and making the harsh, squeaky, rasping sounds.

More on the biology of the larger kangaroos can be found in Terence J. Dawson’s book: “Kangaroos” (CSIRO publishing).

CASSOWARY UPDATE:

2 months after starting to travel together and mating quite often (we watched them several times in our garden), with her seeming more interested in sex than him – apparent by her sitting down invitingly and him often just ingnoring her- he is still not brooding the 8 eggs, which she has already laid.
This would be a very large clutch, indeed. We can’t image how he could raise so many chicks; usually he turns up with 3 and they seem to wear him out quite a bit.
The first eggs were laid more than 6 weeks ago; how long can they survive in the open without being incubated?
This year’s 2 chicks have separated and are growing fast, with visibly blue faces and necks developing.