Numbat

Numbats live in woodlands in Western Australia.

Numbats eat only termites (white ants).

They are also called 'the banded anteater'.

They have long sticky tongues to catch termites.

Numbats have reddish-brown fur.

Habitat
The numbat is a small marsupial that is found only in a small area of Western Australia. Its habitat is eucalyptus woodland. In the past, it was also found in grasslands.

Diet
The numbat is the only marsupial that feeds only on insects. The insects stick to the numbat's tongue and are taken into the mouth. They eat about 20,000 termites a day. Unlike other ant-eating mammals, the numbat does not have strong claws for tearing apart termite nests. It finds termites by scent and then scrabbles at the soil to find the corridors that termites travel along.

Body and Appearance
The numbat's body is about 24 cm long, and it has a brushy tail about 17 cm long. Its fur is reddish-brown, with white stripes across its back. These stripes, and its diet, have given it the name 'banded anteater'. The numbat has a narrow head with a pointy muzzle. It has a long thin sticky tongue that it flicks into holes where termites are.

The numbat is unusual because it is a marsupial without a pouch!

Behaviours
The numbat is one of the few marsupials that is active during the day. It sleeps in hollow fallen logs, and sometimes may dig a burrow.

Life Cycle
Males and females mate around December. Being marusupials, the females are pregnant for just a few days, and the young are born at a very early stage of development. Fourteen days after mating, female numbats give birth to up to 4 young. Each tiny young attaches itself to one of four teats on the outside of the mother's belly, unprotected by a pouch, and stays attached for about 5 months. Young are then moved to a nest in a burrow until spring, when they start to come out and play. By late spring they are ready to move away and find their own territory.

Conservation Status and Threats
The numbat is rare and endangered. Its numbers have been reduced by habitat loss and by foxes, which are introduced animals.

If you use any part of this in your work, acknowledge this source in your bibliography like this:
Numbat (2000). [Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au

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Updated May 2007