Hidden amongst the treetops of our region is a tiny but mighty hunter with a tail like a bottlebrush and a brutal breeding season where the males do not survive - this is the Brush-tailed Phascogale.
NSW Conservation Status: Vulnerable
Commonwealth Conservation Status: Not listed
This small carnivorous marsupial hunts through the canopy of eucalypt forests at night and travels from tree hollow to tree hollow. Rarely descending to the ground, it is almost never spotted. Most people who live alongside the Brush-tailed Phascogale would never know they are there.
Despite their elusiveness, this fascinating native animal faces growing threats from habitat loss, hollow scarcity and introduced predators.
Identification
The Brush-tailed Phascogale has a furry grey body and a pale cream underside, with conspicuous black eyes and large ears. Adults are about 20 centimetres in length with a tail of roughly the same length again, and only weigh between 110 and 235 grams.
The species is named after its distinctive brushy black tail, with raised hairs that resemble the fluffy native bottlebrush flower.
Strong claws and flexible feet make the Brush-tailed Phascogale an agile climber, allowing it to move quickly through trees in search of insects and other prey. As a nocturnal species, its large eyes and ears help it navigate and hunt after dark.
Distribution, habitat and diet
The Brush-tailed Phascogale has a patchy distribution around the coast of Australia. Within NSW it can mainly be found east of the Great Dividing Range. Sightings have been recorded in both Queens Lake Nature Reserve and Queens Lake State Conservation Area, which run roughly twelve kilometres north to south, with the southernmost section bordering North Haven. It prefers dry sclerophyll open forests with sparse groundcover, but also inhabits heath, swamps, rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest.
An agile climber with long, sharp claws, it forages in rough-barked trees, hunting arthropods such as insects, spiders and centipedes on and under the bark. It also takes other invertebrates, small vertebrates, and nectar, described as a prized but patchy food source.
Phascogales shelter and nest in tree hollows with small entrances of no more than 4 centimetres in width. The species may use many different hollows over a short time period, moving between many rather than settling into one forever home.
They forage over large areas and naturally occur at low densities. Females hold exclusive territories of around 20 to 40 hectares, while male territories overlap and often exceed 100 hectares. Even a substantial patch of bushland may support only a few of these animals.
A life lived quickly
Mating takes place between May and July with a unique caveat – after an intensive mating period of three weeks, all mating males will die. This means adult male Phascogales will die before they reach twelve months of age. Females can live for up to three years, though they generally produce only one litter.
For anyone reading this in August and September, that means the Phascogales moving through our local forests right now are almost entirely females, raising this year’s young on their own.
This unusual behaviour is also a major factor in why the species is so vulnerable to local extinction. With large home ranges, low densities, a short lifespan and an annual male die-off, an isolated population needs enough males to reach maturity every single year in order to persist.
Under threat
The biggest pressure on this threatened species is the loss of essential habitat in the form of hollow-bearing trees, which take many decades to form. Other key threats are:
- Loss and fragmentation of habitat, which isolates populations
- Competition for nesting hollows with introduced species, particularly feral honeybees.
- Competition from feral honeybees
- Predation by foxes and cats
- Inappropriate fire regimes
- Environmental factors such as drought
Did you know?
A Phascogale will use many different tree hollows in the space of a few weeks rather than keeping a single home. Protecting one hollow-bearing tree is rarely enough. These animals need a whole neighbourhood of them.
What can you do?
Residents can help by:
- Keeping standing dead trees on your property where it is safe to do so, as these are prime hollow habitat
- Sourcing firewood responsibly rather than collecting timber from bushland
- Planting and retaining local native trees, and protecting existing bushland on your block
- Keeping cats contained, particularly overnight
- Logging any sightings on iNaturalist, which helps build the record of where this species still occurs locally
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