Kids’ Corner

Black Grasswren

The Black Grasswren is only found in the north-west Kimberley in Western Australia. This bird loves rocky sandstone country with big rocks and grasslands.

DID YOU KNOW?
Black Grasswrens live in pairs or groups of up to 8 birds. You can tell males and females apart based on their feathers! Males have a black front with rich brown-back feathers. Females have a paler red-brown front.

Eastern Pygmy Possum

Weighing less than a golf ball, the Eastern Pygmy Possum is one of the smallest possums in the world. They are nocturnal, emerging at night to feed on nectar and pollen from flowering plants such as banksias and eucalypts, as well as some insects.

Greater Bilby

The Greater Bilby is an iconic Australian marsupial, with a pointed snout, long ears, soft grey fur and striking black and white tail. Bilbies dig burrows up to 3 metres deep to live in, and they love to eat insects, seeds, bulbs, fruit and fungi.

DID YOU KNOW?
Greater Bilbies dig up 20 tonnes of
topsoil in a year when making their
homes and looking for food. Their
digging moves water and nutrients
into the soil helping plants to grow.

Great Desert Skink

Great Desert Skinks are large (growing up to 44 cm!), long-lived reptiles that dig complex burrow systems up to 10 metres wide with multiple entrances. Outside of each burrow is a distinctive latrine area – a large toilet that all resident skinks use. Great Desert Skinks share their burrows with their young until they leave home to create their own burrows at 3 years old.

DID YOU KNOW?
In cooler months Great Desert Skinks hibernate in specially constructed chambers in their burrows.

Gouldian Finch

Gouldian Finches are spectacular – their multi-coloured feathers are the colour of gemstones! These small birds have a bright green back, sunshine yellow belly and a royal purple chest. Each bird can have one of three different face colours – black, red or yellow.

DID YOU KNOW?
Gouldian Finches eat grass seeds and prefer to flock together – sometimes in groups of as many as 1,000 members.

Mountain-top Nursery-frog

The Mountain-top Nursery Frog is only found in Australia. Its natural habitat is in moist tropical and subtropical high altitude forests. It is sometimes called the Mount Lewis Nursery Frog.

DID YOU KNOW?
Mountain-top Nursery Frogs are found only in one place in Australia – the very top of Mount Lewis in Queensland!

Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat

The Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat is the largest burrowing marsupial in the world. It is also one of Australia’s rarest animals. They spend most of their time underground in vast burrows but come out at night to feed on grasses.

DID YOU KNOW?
There are only 315 Northern Hairy nosed Wombats left and they can live to be 24 years old.

Numbat

Numbats have rusty-orange and grey black fur, with white bands across their backs that get bigger towards their tail. Numbats have long fluffy tails and very long sticky tongues which they use to eat their favourite food – termites.

DID YOU KNOW?
Like us, Numbats are active during the day. This makes it easier to find termites which Numbats dig up and then eat by flicking out their long tongues.

Purple-crowned Fairy-wren

Purple-crowned Fairywrens are small birds – each one weighs less than 3 sugar cubes! They get their name from the vivid purple crown of feathers males have when trying to attract females. Both males and females have bright blue tails, black bills, and brown backs and wings.

DID YOU KNOW?
The Purple-crowned Fairywrens on Annie Creek and the Adcock River on Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Mornington–Marion Downs Wildlife Sanctuary have been studied since 2005. Scientists can tell the birds apart by sight by the different coloured bands that have been attached to their legs.

Red-tailed Phascogale

The Red-tailed Phascogale is a small marsupial with an ash-grey body and distinctive reddish-brown tail that ends in a brush of long black hairs. By night they hunt prey and during the day they sleep curled up in tree hollows.

DID YOU KNOW?
Red-tailed Phascogales’ favourite foods are insects and spiders. They get all the water they need from their food and don’t need to drink anything!

Rough-scaled Python

The Rough-scaled Python is a placid and non-venomous snake that can grow to 2 metres long!

DID YOU KNOW?
Rough-scaled Pythons live in remote areas and are some of the rarest snakes in Australia! They are well camouflaged and very difficult to spot, but Australian Wildlife Conservancy scientists have spotted them at our sanctuaries in the Kimberley.

Western Quoll

Western Quolls are only found in Western Australia. They have brown fur with white spots on their back and sides and black brushy fur on their tail. Western Quolls hunt at night and shelter in hollow logs or burrows during the day.

DID YOU KNOW?
Another name for the Western Quoll is the Chuditch which is the name given to it by the Noongar Traditional Owners of south-west Western Australia.