Eastern Quoll - Gondwanaland, Leipzig, 02/09/11

Dasyurus viverrinus

OK, so camera not really up to this one. But a fantastic beast!

Leipzig\'s animals are the only quolls of any kind in Europe. The other species in the nocturnal section are Pygmy Slow Loris, Virginia Opossum and (another treat for dasyurid fans) Kowari.

Future Plans for this exhibit:

Nice species, but with Quolls having such a short life-span is the enclosure built with any other species in mind?

How many individuals are there here, and is the Eastern quoll a realistic long-term species for the zoo? If they fail to breed (or run out of genetic diversity) what are Leipzig's chances of aquiring more animals?

The exhibit is a pretty generic nocturnal small mammal exhibit, so if they had to restock with another species that'd be no problem, but I'm sure they'd rather keep them going.

Leipzig imported 3.3 (in two colour morphs) from Melbourne - there only seems to be one on-show so the majority are behind the scenes. They are not terribly long-lived, as you say, so they trick will be to get them breeding. Fingers crossed!

Fingers crossed indeed - seems that for extreme rarities Leipzig is the place to be at the moment, hopefully the majority (or even all) of them will be around for a good long while yet.

Thanks for the info Maguari

Some further rarities will arrive next year, for example Aye Ayes and others....

That's good news, aye-ayes are excellent species, only seen them at Bristol and certainly wouldn't argue with them becomming more abundant

I'm jealous now, heard so much about Gondwanaland on here but knowing that at least 3 UK Zoo Chatters have seen this exhibit and the species held there is torture. You're all lucky sods! Those who live closer are even jammier!

Well just to upset you a bit more,it was probably closer to 10 UK zoochatters that all saw this wonderfull animal,on the same day.

Thanks for that, rub it in a bit more why don't you!

I am very interested in the process of acquiring these animals, i thought there was great difficulty involved in importing Australian animals, but by the looks of it a process well worth possibly years of preparation.