Which small mammal interests you more: The potoroo or the Malagasy giant jumping rat? (poll)

Ah ha ! The potoroo is up by a point !

Maybe the gap will have closed or the potoroo be in the lead once the poll ends ?

@AWP What small marsupials do you like best ?

 

Hard to choose between dasyurids, possums, bandicoots, bettongs etc (like larger ones like wombats and quoll even so), but well, I will choose the Brushtail Possum (hence my avatar), mostly because I had two memorable and close encounters with this marsupial, but it's a close call with the Numbat I think.

The local library had a encyclopedia of mammals when I was a kid (I bought it eventually for an euro or so when the library sold it and it has still a prominent spot on my book shelf), so I was aware of some species of small marsupials, but it was by the photographic books of Steve Parish that I really learned about the diversity of Australian marsupials. My uncle brought back a small book from his holiday down under in the mid-1990's with photographs of a couple of familiair marsupials like kangaroos, koala and wombat (although I hadn't see the latter two in real at the time) but also of strange and fluffy animals called gliders, ringtails and pygmy-possums I didn't know of. When I visited Australia myself the first time, I bought a book of Steve Parish about marsupials with wonderfull photographs all types of unknown marsupials to me with strange names like Dibbler, Dunnart, Kultarr, Ningaui, Bilby, Warabi and Narbalek, next to new varieties of possums. The best thing is, I was able to build up a quite nice list of species seen over the next years.

 

Yes, I agree, so many of the marsupials are interesting (you will like my next poll for sure). It is amazing what a book or media contact with a species or natural history in general can do in terms of a childs development isn't it ? I mean it often becomes a lifelong interest or even a career later on in life.

I totally agree, some of the names are just so strange and exotic that it is impossible to read one like "kowari" or "dunnart" and not check what it looks like online. I too find the numbat fascinating (more so than the possums actually as those remind me too closely of the oppossums that we have over here) but I would say that my favourite marsupials are probably the potoroos and bettongs and for the carnivores the quoll or the little kowaris.

Personally, I just feel like I don't know enough about the Australian marsupials and so I'm currently trying to fill in some very large knowledge gaps that I have about them by reading papers online and that kind of thing for general interest.

 

Interesting short clip from a documentary that features the Gilbert's potoroo that I thought I would post in this thread.

The documentary must have been from the 90's as it also feature the woylie and refers to it as having been removed from the endangered category so must have been filmed before the population decline.

 

Gotta be the Jumping Rat, probably because it's my daughter's favourite animal, up to the point she cried when our local collection went out of them...

 

That is awesome and quite incredible to hear too !

That is great that your daughter felt such an affection for the species ! (sorry to hear that your local collection phased them out though , which zoo is this by the way ?)

You see, I think this is really where the value of ex-situ management for small mammals and taxa in zoos comes in. I do very firmly believe (contrary to what Damian has said in his thread ) that for most of these animals there is both have an educational value and an urgent conservation need for them to be there.

When they are kept and can be seen in zoos future generations can see them and feel an empathy and learn to care about the plight of smaller species which is something typically experienced mostly towards larger more well known taxa.

( I'm sure your daughter would have already felt this anyway though because I bet that you as her father teach her about these animals way before seeing them )

 

I may have influenced her taste in animals slightly, we don't go to the zoo for mega fauna, we're hunting down Tinamous at Chester and Jumping Rats at Birmingham (my local collection by the way) instead and she's usually quite happy with that. She's also got a thing for Sloths and Anteaters as well, gets really jealous if I see one without her!

 

Well that can only be a good thing in my opinion as I am no fan of the whole megafauna thing / bias.

You never know where these kind of early childhood interests can lead, maybe she will be a biologist or a conservation biologist when she grows up (happened to me) so it is just brilliant that she gets to see all of these small and interesting creatures at an early age.

That is great to hear ! The xenartha are awesome indeed and children and adults usually tend to find them interesting, unusual and cute.

They just seem to have an appeal whether it is the sloth with its slowness and tiredness, the armadillo with its curious shell and scurrying around or the giant anteater with its size and strange look,

 

Well, it looks like the Malagasy giant jumping rat won this poll outright !

It comes as quite a suprise to me as I was expecting the potoroo to win, but I'm glad that so many zoochatters are fond of and interested in this charismatic species as much as I am.

Here is a video from the Durrell trust of some mini giant jumping rats to celebrate their victory in the poll.

 

Long-nosed Potoroo is fairly straight forward in a couple of places. I saw at least three while spotlighting on Bruny Island, TAS. One hopping about within a metre of myself.
For Gilbert's Potoroo I joined a Parks and Wildlife survey in Two People's Bay, WA. We caught several individuals over a four day period. Pretty impossible to see otherwise. Obviously got fairly close to that one.^^
With Long-footed Potoroo I got lucky on my second night drive in East Gippsland, VIC, where I saw a single individual on the road. It stuck around for maybe a minute before turning around and hopping off.

Guess I do and you are correct.

 

I really like them. I have a weakness for species that ‘do what it says on the tin’. Really big rat that jumps.

 

Great comment, haha, yes me too.

 

W

White-faced Whistling Ducks and Black-necked Swans were always good for playing ‘Guess What it’s Called’ with zoo visitors.

 

I can imagine.

Black blue-eyed lemurs could be another one too.

 

You’re getting good at this game. Greater and Lesser Flamingos together, would fit. Also Red River Hog.....Black Swan....must be loads of them.

 

Pygmy Mouse, Pygmy Hippo...

 

Dwarf mongoose ?

 

Then you're expecting "Average Joe" to know what a mongoose is, they'd probably call it a Mini Meerkat!

 

Yeah, true hahaha, unfortunately would have to agree with you damn meerkats!

 

In dutch a very nice one is witgezichtpenseelaapje, witoorpenseelaapje and zwartoorpenseelaapje translating to white-headed, white-eared (common marmoset) and black-eared brush-monkey (black-tufted marmoset). With brush I am talking about something like a painting brush referring to their tails.