Monotremes are found in Australia and New Guinea. Platypus are found in Australia, including the southern island of Tasmania. Echidnas are found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. Fossil evidence from sixty-three million years ago confirms that monotremes once lived in South America, dating back to a remote time when the continents of Australia, Antarctica, and South America were closer …
The short-beaked echidna lives throughout Australia, Tasmania, and the lowlands of New Guinea. The long-beaked echidna lives only in the New Guinea highlands. The short-beaked echidna lives wherever its main food sources, ants and termites, are abundant enough to keep it fed, allowing the species to occupy nearly all habitat types in Australia and New Guinea, from tropical rainforest and gras…
Platypus are found only in mainland Australia and the southern island of Tasmania. Platypus are distributed along Australia's east coast, to about 500 miles (800 kilometers) inland, from Cook-town, Queensland to Melbourne, Victoria, and into Tasmania. All platypus live on the edges of freshwater bodies like lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams, in tropical and temperate regions. …
In a very general sense, the Didelphidae can be said to inhabit both New World continents, from southeastern Canada to southern South America, but the common or Virginia opossum is the only marsupial making its home in the continental U.S. and Canada. All other species of Didelphidae range across Mexico, Central, and South America, from northern Mexico to southern Patagonia in South America, …
Tiny, secretive, and living in remote regions, shrew opossums have very little interaction with humanity and pose no threats. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) lists the Chilean shrew opossum as Vulnerable (facing a high risk of extinction), due to deforestation (removing trees) from logging. …
The monito del monte has a limited range in South America, in southern Chile, overlapping into Argentina, from Concepción, Chile, southward to and including the Chilean island of Chiloé, and inland to the Andes and just over the border into Argentina. The monito del monte is mostly insectivorous, meaning that it forages for and eats insect larvae (LAR-vee) and pupae (PYOO-pee). …
Animals in this order live in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, and also inhabit some of the nearby Pacific islands. Farmers consider many Australasian carnivorous marsupials pests because they prey on livestock such as sheep and chickens. Some animals have been collected for zoos, but none of the animals in this order have been significantly hunted for their fur. In times past, some may h…
Members of Dasyuridae live in Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania, and can also be found on some small islands in that area of the Pacific. Members of this family usually do not have much direct interaction with people. Some species, however, have been thought to kill livestock and because of this have been hunted by farmers. No species in this family are known to be extinct, but many, such a…
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when Europeans began to settle in Australia, numbats occupied a much larger area than they do today. At that time, numbats lived in the southern half of central and western Australia. They lived as far east as New South Wales and as far north as the Northern Territory. Today, numbats inhabit nine wild and two free-range areas across the sou…
Tasmanian wolves are extinct. They were killed off mostly by farmers and bounty hunters during the 1800s. Tasmanian wolves were thought of as pests and killers of livestock, much the way the coyote was thought of during the settlement of the American West. …
Species in this order are found only in limited parts of Australia, New Guinea, and the Indonesian island of Seram. In the past, these animals were abundant. They were found in about 70 percent of Australia, throughout New Guinea, and on several other Indonesian islands. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, their range has been drastically reduced by human activities. The two familie…
Before the arrival of European colonists in 1770, bandicoots and bilbies were found in about 70 percent of Australia and on several nearby islands. Today they are found in many fewer places in Australia and the island of Tasmania. The bilby, especially, can be found only in isolated pockets mainly on protected park land or in captive breeding areas. Bandicoots and bilbies prefer dry areas. Be…
Spiny bandicoots live mainly on the island of New Guinea and a few small neighboring islands. One species is found in Australia only on the northernmost tip of Queensland, the part of Australia closest to New Guinea. Spiny bandicoots prefer damp, humid habitats. They live in tropical rainforests and mountain rainforests at elevations from zero to 14,800 feet (zero to 4,500 meters). Species li…
Marsupial moles live in the deserts of Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and southwestern corner of Queensland. These moles live in sandy desert regions and seem to prefer sand plains near seasonal rivers or sand ridges where spinifex grass grows. Marsupial moles hunt and feed underground, digging their food out of the sand. They are insectivores, eating mainly ants, …
Diprotodonts are native only in Australia, New Guinea, and a few islands of Indonesia. The brush-tailed possum was introduced to New Zealand, where it is considered a pest. …
Koalas are found in isolated patches along the eastern coast of Australia from Queensland to Victoria. Koalas eat only eucalyptus (yoo-kah-LIP-tus) leaves. Therefore, they are limited to areas where eucalypts grow. This can range from wet tropical forests to dry open woodlands. Aboriginal peoples of Australia hunted koalas for food, as did Europeans when they arrived in Australia. Today koala…
Wombats live in southeastern Australia. The common wombat is fairly widespread and can be found in parts of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. The northern hairy-nosed wombat lives only in one place in Queensland, and the southern hairy-nosed wombat lives in a small area along the south central coast of Australia. Wombats live under the ground in open grassland, open wo…
Phalangers are found in New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania, the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, and a few other small islands. The common brush-tailed possum was introduced in New Zealand over a century ago and has become an alien (non-native) pest species. Possums and cuscuses spend their lives in trees. Most live in rainforests. However, the common brush-tailed possum has adapted to life in dev…
The musky rat-kangaroo lives only in a small area of Australian rainforest in northeastern Queensland. Musky rat-kangaroos live on the rainforest floor. They usually prefer places where there are many plants that provide good cover for them. They often live near water, such as streams and lakes, because that is where the vegetation is more dense. The musky rat-kangaroo does not have any known…
Rat-kangaroos live on the coasts of Australia, especially the southern and eastern coasts. They also live in Tasmania and on a few nearby islands. Rat-kangaroos live mainly in forests where there are many eucalyptus trees. Some types of rat kangaroos, like the burrowing bettong, live in other habitats, such as sandy areas that have dunes. …
Kangaroos and wallabies live all over Australia, as well as in parts of New Guinea and some surrounding islands. They have been introduced into Hawaii, New Zealand, Great Britain, and Germany. Kangaroos and wallabies live in many different habitats. Some live in the tropical rainforest while others live in the grasslands or woodlands. There is almost no area of Australia where at least one sp…
Pygmy possums live in central New Guinea, Tasmania, and southeastern and southwestern Australia. Most pygmy possums live in wet forest areas with evergreen or eucalyptus (yoo-kah-LIP-tus) trees. One species, the mountain pygmy possum, lives in the tropical mountain rainforest of New Guinea above 4,900 feet (1,500 meters). Different species of pygmy possums have different diets, ranging from p…
Ringtail and greater gliding possums live along the eastern coast of Australia from its northern-most tip near New Guinea to its southern-most tip near Tasmania. They can also be found in the more mountainous areas of New Guinea, as well as Tasmania, and the southwestern tip of Australia. Most of the species that live in New Guinea, live in mountain forests. In Australia there are a number of…
Striped possums live in New Guinea. One species is also found in the rainforest on the northern tip of Australia that is closest to New Guinea. Gliding possums also live in New Guinea and Australia, but are found in a much wider area. They live both on the northern and eastern coast of Australia and on the island of Tasmania. Gliding and striped possums live in many different types of forests…
Honey possums live in a very small region in the southwestern tip of Australia. The honey possum lives on uninhabited sandy beaches where the kinds of flowers that they feed on bloom almost all year round. In 1992, much of the habitat and food supply of the honey possum was disappearing because humans were developing their habitat with little regard to this small animal. Today, with increased…
The pygmy glider lives in eastern Australia. The feather-tailed possum lives in New Guinea. Both species in this family live in trees. Feather-tailed possums live in tropical rainforests and woodland areas. They are also sometimes found in suburban gardens. Pygmy gliders prefer forests that contain many eucalyptus (yoo-kah-LIP-tus) trees. They also live in other woodland areas. Feather-tailed…
The extinct West Indian sloths lived in the West Indies, in island countries including Haiti. Living two-toed sloth species reside in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. The earliest West Indian sloths were arboreal, living in trees. Later species lived both on the ground and in trees. Most two-toed…
Three-toed tree sloths live in Central and South America. Species are found in Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, French Guiana, and Guyana. Monk sloths live only on Escudo de Veraguas Island off the coast of Panama. Three-toed sloths live primarily in forests. They are located in rainfore…
Anteaters live in Central and South America, in Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Silky anteaters live in trees in rainforests, areas where abundant rainfall produces heavy growth. They also inhabit grassland, areas where there are few trees. Giant anteaters live on…
The nine-banded armadillo is the only armadillo living in the United States. Armadillos live in the South American countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Some armadillo species range in Mexico and the Central American countries of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and P…
