Creatures of the night

While some are strict­ly noc­tur­nal, like pos­sums and bandi­coots, oth­ers just seem to be more active in the wee hours of the night. Equal­ly adorable in day­light and moon­light, here are sev­en of our native night owls.

Micro­bat

Lurk­ing in the dark and hard­ly mak­ing a sound, bats are true crea­tures of the night. While you’re get­ting your beau­ty sleep, bats are out there busy work­ing as nature’s exter­mi­na­tors. They play a vital role in con­trol­ling insect num­bers, eat­ing about half of their body­weight in insects each night. Top on the menu? Mos­qui­toes and moths. They say beau­ty is in the eye of the behold­er, but when a crea­ture like this is doing such a good com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, how can they not seem beautiful?

Potoroo

These lit­tle mar­su­pi­als are some of the friend­liest ani­mals seen in the Aus­tralian bush, and while they’re not strict­ly noc­tur­nal, these guys are still up and at em’ dur­ing the night. Often con­fused with rats, they are actu­al­ly more like mini kan­ga­roos. Potoroo mums even car­ry their joeys around in their pouch.

Tas­man­ian Devil

They might be fero­cious but they’re also pret­ty cute when their teeth are tucked away. The crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered Tas­man­ian Dev­il has the largest bite force to body size ratio of any ani­mal in the world – it’s only slight­ly less pow­er­ful than a pit­bull. They use their keen sense of smell to scav­enge for food, and being awake through the night means they are no stranger to a mid­night snack.

Bandi­coot

The South­ern Brown Bandi­coot is noc­tur­nal but can also be seen out and about dur­ing the day. While they can be a shy bunch, they’re cer­tain­ly not shy when it comes to mat­ing. Female bandi­coots can have up to five lit­ters every year, gen­er­al­ly in the sec­ond half of the year, each with about two or three joeys. 

Tawny Frog­mouth

Not to be con­fused with an owl, this clever bird real­ly is danc­ing in the moon­light when it comes to cel­e­brat­ing how many insects it catch­es at night. Sounds sim­ple but all a Tawny Frog­mouth does to catch bugs is sit with its mouth open and let the moon­light work its mag­ic. The light makes the inside of the frogmouth’s beak glow, attract­ing insects to fly right in. Despite its demure appear­ance, the frogmouth’s hunt­ing tech­niques are any­thing but. For larg­er prey such as mice, it picks up its prey and knocks it repeat­ed­ly against a branch to kill it.

Koala

Curled up hav­ing a snooze in the sun is how koalas spend most of their day – in between munch­ing on euca­lyp­tus leaves. Did you know they eat about 10 per cent of their body weight in leaves each day? That’s about 1000 leaves per koala per day. At this rate, each koala needs access to about 60 trees a year. You’ll often hear them at night, growl­ing and grunt­ing, but it’s not a good idea to approach a wild koala – despite their cute and fuzzy exte­ri­or, they will lash out with teeth and claws if they feel cornered.

Pos­sum

Arguably the most com­mon native night walk­ers, pos­sums are the only mar­su­pi­al that are able to thrive in urban­i­sa­tion – using sheds and roof spaces as makeshift tree hol­lows. There’s the ring­tail pos­sum that lives almost exclu­sive­ly in trees, and the brush­tail vari­eties that come to ground to feed – which makes them a com­mon vic­tim of road­kill. Both species are leaf eaters, and they aren’t afraid to sneak into your veg­gie patch or fruit trees in the mid­dle of the night to sat­is­fy their bellies.

Want to see some of these night owls for your­self? Cle­land Wildlife Park runs a range of night walks where you can get up-close and per­son­al with these guys and plen­ty of oth­ers, includ­ing bet­tongs, kan­ga­roos, wal­la­bies and owls. There’s even pri­vate tours – why not go for a spe­cial occasion?