40 Fun Facts About Rock-Wallaby

A pair of brush-tailed rock-wallabies that escaped in 1916 founded a wild colony in which US state?

Hawaii still has a small breeding population in Oahu's Kalihi Valley, on the edge of Honolulu, all thanks to that one escaped pair.

Sceptics once blamed a dye for which neck colour that one species of rock-wallaby actually secretes?

Purple pigment is secreted by the purple-necked rock-wallaby itself, but it washes off in the rain and fades after death, so specimens were easily confused with other species.

After the 2019–20 bushfires, park staff air-dropped sweet potatoes and which other vegetable for rock-wallabies?

Carrots and sweet potatoes were dropped by the thousands of kilograms over New South Wales, because the animals usually survive a fire but are left with little to eat.

In a world first, a rock-wallaby at Adelaide Zoo became surrogate mother to an orphaned baby of which animal?

Tree kangaroo joeys had never been fostered this way; the zoo had only swapped young between wallaby species until this one lost its mother at five weeks old.

The thick, spongy pads on the soles of a yellow-footed rock-wallaby are said to grip rock like what?

Running shoes are the comparison conservationists use: the coarse, highly granulated pads supply friction as the animal bounds over boulders at high speed.

How do yellow-footed rock-wallabies warn the rest of their colony when they sense a predator nearby?

They thump their feet on the ground, an alarm signal shared with other rock-wallaby species, in colonies that can hold up to 100 animals.

Rock-wallabies shipped to Kawau Island in the 1800s became an unwanted pest in which country?

New Zealand later gave some back: between 1967 and 1975, 210 of Kawau's rock-wallabies were captured and returned to Australia.

Which introduced predator do scientists blame most for rock-wallaby colonies dying out in recent times?

The red fox tops the list of threats, so recovery programs start by removing it and keep captive-bred animals in reserve as an insurance policy.

Named after the goddess Persephone, the Proserpine rock-wallaby was found at the start of which season?

Spring is when Persephone returns from the underworld in Greek myth, so the name marks both the timing of the find and the return of a lost animal to human knowledge.

A yellow-footed rock-wallaby's long, cylinder-shaped tail lets it do what in the middle of a leap?

It can change direction in mid-air, using the tail as a counterweight and rudder; most other macropods have a cone-shaped tail that is fatter at the base.

Black-flanked rock-wallabies rarely need to drink because they get most of their water from where?

Their diet supplies most of the moisture they need, and sheltering in cool rocky hollows through the heat of the day helps them hold on to it.

Where does a young yellow-footed rock-wallaby that has left the pouch usually wait while its mother forages?

In a sheltered crevice or cave; the youngster grows more independent over time but still returns to its mother for milk and safety.

Though mostly nocturnal, brush-tailed rock-wallabies come out for short spells on winter days to do what?

They bask in the sun for short periods, and they pick their homes to suit: the species favours north-facing refuges.

Yellow-footed rock-wallabies were killed in large numbers from the 1880s to the 1920s mainly for what?

Their pelts were sold as fur, while sport hunting and grazing livestock cut numbers further after European settlement.

The monjon, the smallest of all rock-wallabies, lives only in which rugged part of north-western Australia?

The Kimberley and a few islands off its coast hold every known monjon, an animal of little more than a kilogram that science described only in 1978.

The nabarlek, a tiny rock-wallaby, is unique among marsupials because what is replaced throughout its life?

Its molars keep being replaced for life, a trait that researchers proposed was favoured by the high silica content of the plants it eats.

In 2018 the southern brush-tailed rock-wallaby became the mammal emblem of the territory around which city?

Canberra's Australian Capital Territory picked the animal even though none had been seen in the wild there since 1959.

Which feral animal competes with yellow-footed rock-wallabies for food and shelter and is culled to protect them?

Goats compete for both the plants and the rock shelters, so sanctuaries in the species' range pair culls with predator control.

Petrogale, the genus name of the rock-wallabies, combines Greek words for rock and which small predator?

Weasel is the meaning of the Greek galee, and the idea lingers in English: the tiny monjon has also been called Burbidge's rock-weasel.

The yellow-footed rock-wallaby was formerly known by which other name, also inspired by its striking looks?

Ring-tailed was the old label, for a tail irregularly banded in dark brown and gold; the animal also has orange ears and a white stripe on each cheek.

Like many macropods, a black-flanked rock-wallaby mother can do what with a newly conceived embryo?

She can pause its development, a trick called embryonic diapause that holds the embryo dormant; breeding in the species follows seasonal rainfall.

Proserpine rock-wallabies released on Hayman Island were found dead with wounds blamed on which predators?

Eagles were the suspects, narrowed down to the wedge-tailed eagle and the white-breasted sea eagle; the island colony still doubled from its first 26 animals.

Whose talk of a strange rock-wallaby near Proserpine, Queensland, led scientists to capture one in 1977?

Local farmers had spoken of an odd rock-wallaby in the district, and the single animal caught in 1977 proved them right; it was formally described in 1982.

The nabarlek, a rock-wallaby of Arnhem Land, lent its name to a rock band and a mine that dug which material?

Uranium was the prize: a nurse turned prospector named her Northern Territory lease after the animal, and the mine there was worked in 1979.

The nabarlek specimen first described in 1842 reached England aboard which famous Royal Navy survey ship?

HMS Beagle carried it home from a survey of the Australian coast, the voyage the ship made straight after the one that took Charles Darwin round the world.

Which naturalist, famed for his books on birds, first described the black-flanked rock-wallaby in the 1840s?

John Gould, called the father of bird study in Australia, also named the short-eared rock-wallaby and the nabarlek within a year or so.

Wilkins' rock-wallaby, named in 2014, honours Sir Hubert Wilkins, an Australian best known for exploring where?

The polar regions made his name, but in 1925 he was collecting animals in Arnhem Land, where he took the specimen later recognised as a new species.

Seven look-alike Queensland rock-wallabies, the Mareeba among them, were told apart only by studying what?

Their genes, and above all their chromosomes, differ where their looks barely do; the Mareeba rock-wallaby was only recognised as a species in 1992.

Besides Palm Island, the allied rock-wallaby's Queensland range takes in which island just off Townsville?

Magnetic Island lies only 8 kilometres from Townsville, and the allied rock-wallaby is common enough across its range to be rated of least concern.

Kunwinjku hunters of Arnhem Land once trapped rock-wallabies in rocky country by burning what?

Spinifex, a hummock grass, was set alight to trap the animal the Kunwinjku call badbong, which hunters carried spears into the escarpment to catch.

Brush-tailed rock-wallabies live on cliffs and rock piles along which Australian mountain chain?

The Great Dividing Range once carried them from Queensland to Victoria, but they have declined badly in the south and west and stay locally common only in the north.

A surviving colony of brush-tailed rock-wallabies was discovered in 1970 in which Victorian mountains?

The Grampians hid a few survivors of an animal settlers had hunted for its skin, though later efforts to rebuild the colony there were set back by predators.

At which New South Wales show-cave reserve did a rock-wallaby population crash to about seven animals by 1992?

Jenolan saw 80 caged animals released in 1988 to boost its wild colony, yet only about seven were left four years later, and the survivors were fenced in for safety.

Arkaroola, a sanctuary set up in 1968 to protect yellow-footed rock-wallabies, lies in which mountains?

The Flinders Ranges sanctuary covers 610 square kilometres of rugged outback, where staff control predators and sometimes hand-rear abandoned joeys.

Which colonial governor bought Kawau Island as a private retreat and stocked it with rock-wallabies?

George Grey bought the island in 1862 and turned it into a private zoo and garden, importing five kinds of wallaby along with kookaburras and possums.

The endangered Proserpine rock-wallaby lives around which Queensland resort town?

Airlie Beach gardens can be a hazard: the animals graze on lawns and ornamental plants there, and some introduced garden plants are toxic to them.

Rothschild's rock-wallaby has been found sheltering in rail embankments built to carry which Pilbara export?

Iron ore railways gave it new shelter, yet mining has also displaced the species, and some animals have been moved out of the way of new operations.

Wild Mareeba rock-wallabies can be seen at Granite Gorge Nature Park, inland from which Queensland city?

Cairns is about 60 kilometres from the gorge, one of the few places to meet a species that lives only on the tops of a couple of mountain ranges.

Rothschild's rock-wallaby honours Walter Rothschild, a zoologist born into a family famous for which business?

Banking made the family's fortune, and Walter was a patron of the collecting expeditions that turned up the animal, which was named in his honour in 1904.

Toxoplasmosis, which can blind or kill rock-wallabies, comes from a parasite that breeds only in which animals?

Cats are the only animals in which the parasite reproduces sexually, which is why both pet and feral cats count as a threat to rock-wallaby colonies.