Tasmanian Tiger

It is generally considered that this animal is now extinct as there have been no confirmed sightings in the wild since 1932 and the last to die in captivity was in 1936. It was originally thought to live all over Australia but was confined to Tasmania for the last 3000 years where it lived in open forest and scrubland. They were nocturnal animals that fed on other marsupials and sheep. They were solitary hunters who used their pace, stamina and wide opening jaws to run down their prey and rip out its neck. The thylacine (as it is technically called) were strange looking animals that looked like a striped dog with a pouch. Its shape, size, and manner was that of a big dog with stripes from half way down its back to the tail. Its colour was brownish with a cream belly and its jaw could open extremely wide. The tail was like a thin kangaroo tail which did not wag like a dog and the female had a backward facing pouch. The male also had a pouch to protect its testicles.

Tasmanian Devil

The nocturnal Tasmanian Devil is Australia's largest carnivorous marsupial. It is relatively shy and lives alone. It is believed that it once lived all over Australia until it was hunted to extinction on the mainland by dingos, now surviving in coastal scrub and eucalypt forests on Tasmania. It is also a scavenger found near human settlements. Tasmanian Devils prefer to fed on dead animals no matter how old or rotton and also go into a topor when food is scarce. They do kill their own prey also such as snakes, birds, rodents, lizards, and small wallabies, which they kill with a powerful bite to the back or back of the neck. Devils have an extremely large and powerful head with a wide jaw and sharp teeth. Their colouring is usually black with a white collar and they are the size of a small terrier dog, wieghing 6-8kg. They are not aggressive by nature until it comes to food. Devils are very loud when there is a number of them at one carcass, with sounds ranging from barks, snorts, growls, and screams.

Quolls

Native to Australia and New Guinea, there are four kinds of Quolls - western, northern, eastern, and spotted-tailed. They are found in forest areas where they are fierce predators and hunt small animals such as lizards, possums, mice, frogs, birds, as well as feeding on seeds and fruit. These nocturnal animals are about the same size as a cat and were often called native cats. Their fur is usually brown with white spots.

Dibbler

A small carnivorous marsupial with a distinct white ring around each eye and a tapering hairy tail. There are two kinds of Dibbler, the southern and the northern. They have brownish grey fur freckled with white on the upper body and grey white fur tinged with yellow on their lower body. Dibblers were thought to be extinct in the wild for 63 years until one was captured in 1967 on the south coast of Western Australia. They have also since been found on two small islands off Western Australia. They typically live in heath vegetation in which flowering shrubs may be an important requirement.

Yellow-footed Antechinus

One of several Antechinus, this species has a change in fur colour from slate grey on the head to a warm rufous rear, belly, feet, and sides. It has prominent light eye rings and its tail is tipped black. Feeding mostly on insects but also flowers, nectar, mice, and small birds, this is a strange animal that moves at great speed along any surface including upside down along branches. After mating occurs once a year, the male dies shortly after copulation.

Planigale

There are four kinds of planigale - common, long-tailed, narrow-nosed, and Giles'. They are a mouse sized mammal with grey to cinnamon upper fur, paler fur below, and white under the chin. It is found across the north of the Northern Territory and down the east coast to about the middle of New South Wales. It lives in a range of habitats including rainforests, rocky areas, grasslands, marshlands, and eucalypt forests. It is a nocturnal animal with a fierce nature, feeding on insects. The long-tailed planigale is the smallest of all marsupials and it is the rarest of the planigale species. This type only wieghs 4-5g

Ningaui

There are three species of ningaui named Pilbara, Wongai, or Southern. They are primarily nocturnal and feed on insects, spiders, small lizards, and they are very efficient killers with huge appetites. They have a very short life span of only 12-18  months in which they breed only once. The Wongai ningaui is found in much of Central Australia and also in tropical monsoon areas, however, they like spinifex habitats. The Pilbara ningaui is restricted to semi-arid grasslands of central west Western Australia. The Southern ningaui has a wide range of habitats but is most commonly found in semi-arid mallee with some spinifex cover.

Kultarr

Kultarrs have long soft grey fur on top and white stomachs. They love to jump and are often called jumping pouched mice. These marsupials are terrestrial and nocturnal, nesting in logs, vegetation, or burrows belonging to other animals in arid habitats. They eat spiders, lizards, and insects.

Dunnart

There are about ten different species of Dunnart which are often called marsupial mice because of their size. They are found in Australia and New Guinea, living in deserts or rainforests. Being nocturnal, they hunt at night, feeding on insects, lizards, mice, spiders, and other small animals. They are fearless and if threatened, they open their wide mouth and hiss.

Brush-tailed Phascogale

One of two types of phascogale, the other being the red-tailed, the brush-tailed phascogale has a big black bottlebrush tail and hunts small animals at night. It lives in ironbark tree holes in forests of northern Victoria. It feeds on spiders, centipedes, and beetles.