Aboriginal name: Chuditch is an anglicised version of djooditj, the Noongar word for the species. It’s also known as atyelpe or chilpa to the Arrernte; kuninka among the Western Desert people; and idnya among the Adnyamathanha of South Australia.

Physical characteristics: The adult western quoll is the size of small domestic cat. Males can reach a weight of 1.3kg and females about 900g. The fur is red-brown with up to 70 large white spots. Like human fingerprints, the spot patterns are specific to each individual. 

Habitat: Western quoll use a range of habitats, from jarrah forest and mallee shrubland to eucalypt woodland and desert. They shelter in hollow logs or shallow burrows. The only other quoll species in their current range is the northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) which is smaller.

Diet: Western quoll are primarily nocturnal predators that are most active at dusk (when they hunt). They prey on large spiders, insects and other invertebrates, small lizards, birds, frogs and mammals. They also prey on rabbits in their burrows and scavenge carrion and food scraps around campsites. They eat mostly on the ground, but will climb trees to take prey, including bird eggs and nestlings. 

Reproduction: Western quoll are solitary animals, apart from mothers and babies. The young are born between May and September and are fully weaned and independent at about six months. Gestation is about 18 days and females can produce as many as 50 tiny, underdeveloped foetuses (5mm long and weighing 10mg), but only 2–6 survive to attach to the mother’s six nipples. Individuals become sexually mature at 12 months of age and usually do not live beyond three years. The young remain in the mother’s pouch (more of a flap than a pouch) for about 60 days, and are then left in a den while their mother forages. 

Cultural significance: The western quoll/chuditch is significant to First Nations people from a wide area. The type of cultural significance varies between regions – they can be important totemic animals and present in Dreaming stories. 

Threats: The main threat is land clearing, but foxes and, more recently, feral cats have decimated population numbers.

Related: A guide to all six species of quoll

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One of five species of black-cockatoo’s native to Australia, this large black bird is easily identified from its fellow cockies thanks to its yellow check patch and yellow panels on its tail. Although only visible up close, most of the black plumage on the yellow-tailed black cockatoo’s body is also tipped with a golden hue. The male and female birds vary in terms of eye-ring colour (pink in males and pale grey in females), bill colour (grey-black in males and white in females) and the female also has black marks in its yellow tail panels.

Yellow-tailed black-cockatoos can be found within south-eastern Australia. From south and central eastern Queensland, down to the Eyre Peninsula, as well as Tasmania and the Islands of the Bass Strait and Kangaroo Island, this cockatoo prefers to live in forests and eucalyptus woodlands from coastal to subalpine zones. The yellow-tailed black-cockatoo also inhabits pine plantations and occasionally makes its home in urban environments where there is access to food supplies.

Yellow-tailed black-cockatoos can make quite the spectacle as they feed, gathering in noisy flocks, and making a mess as they dine. High in the branches of she-oaks, eucalyptus or pine trees, the birds feast on seeds and on wood-boring larvae from insects such as cossid moths and cerambycid beetle. The cockatoos will also search for lower seedbearing shrubs such as banksias. Leaving behind a scattering of chewed seedpods and twigs that have fallen from the canopy above, the yellow-tailed black-cockatoo rarely swoops to ground level, except when they are inspecting fallen pine or banksia cones or to drink.

During their long breeding season, which varies depending on the home range of the bird, monogamous yellow-tailed black-cockatoo pairs build a nest in a large tree hollow and line it with wood chips. One to two white rounded oval eggs are incubated by the female, while the male supplies food. Cockatoo chicks are covered in yellow down, with a pink beak that fades to greyish white by the time of fledging. Both parents help to raise their young, which leave the nest three months after hatching but stay with the family unit the next breeding season. 

Yellow-tailed cockatoos can form flocks of 100 birds or more outside of the breeding season, making an impressive display as they fly overhead. With deep, slow wingbeats, the flight of these birds has been described as fluid and ‘lazy’ as they journey leisurely through the sky.     

Populations of the yellow-tailed black-cockatoo have been in decline, mainly due to habitat clearing for farmland, predation of eggs by possums, increased risk of predators such as wedge-tailed eagles from loss of vegetation cover and competition for nesting hollows.

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Ranging in colour from olive and dull grey to dark brown, water-holding frogs have thick bodies usually with a whitish under belly. The variety of colourations provide the frogs with an effective camouflage coat to protect them against predators such as snakes, monitor lizards, and birds as they wallow in streams, ponds, and clay pans.

This frog has a flat head with small eyes and smooth upper skin that is dappled with a few low warts. The water-holding frog has fully webbed toes and a small ridge on the underside of its back feet called a metatarsal tubercle which is used as a spade to dig.   

Native to Australia, the eastern water-holding frog (Cyclorana platycephala) can be found in western New South Wales, southern Queensland, north-eastern South Australia, and a few select spots within the Northern Territory. The western water-holding frog (Cyclorana occidentalis) in found inland and on the coast of Western Australia.

This unique amphibian makes its home within a wide variety of habitats including grasslands, temporary swamps, or pools after heavy rain periods, as well as wet scrub, forest, claypans, creeks and billabongs.

During the dry season, the water-holding frog spends its time hidden from sight, burrowed deep in the soil. When the summer rains arrive and water soaks down into the earth, the water holding frog is awoken from its slumber and makes it way to the surface to feed and breed. During their time above the ground, the water-holding frog hides under plant vegetation or rocks during the day and is active at night.

The water-holding frog takes full advantage of the short time it spends on land, eating a buffet of worms, insects, tadpoles, and other small frogs to build up energy and fat reserves as quickly as possible. It also absorbs half its body weight in water, storing it in its bladder and in pockets of its skin.

As well as filling its body with nutrients and H2O, the water-holding frog doesn’t waste time in finding a mate once it emerges from underground after the rains. The male’s distinct mating call sounds a bit like a motorbike starting with a long and low ‘maaaw-w-w,’ helps to attract a female frog. After mating, the female water-holding frog lays up to 500 eggs in a puddle. Once hatched, these large, golden tadpoles must then go through the cycle of metamorphosis and become froglets before the ground dries up again.

The water-holding frog goes to extreme measures to survive once the land begins to dry out, thanks to a process called aestivation. After the rains, when the environment is hot and dry, the frog will use its spade like feet to bury itself deep underground, where it then reduces its core metabolic rate and begins a period of hibernation.

This strange yet amazing adaptation sees the water-holding frog shed several layers of skin which it then uses to densely line the inside of its hole. This type of translucent, waterproof dead-skin cocoon helps the frog to maintain the water inside its body, allowing it to remain happily buried underground in its chamber for dry periods that may last years at a time.  

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Also noted as one of the most common birds of prey, the peregrine falcon can be found on every continent except Antarctica, with populations scattered across Australia.

A large blue-grey raptor, with barred underparts, creamy white chin and chest and a dark hood, the peregrine falcon is a powerfully built hunting machine. Peregrines have long pointed wings and females are generally larger than males.

With a striking yellow eye-ring and matching heavy yellow bill with black tip, the peregrine has feathery upper legs, with yellow lower legs and feet. Large sharp talons complete this bird of prey’s striking appearance and are used to easily catch and kill food mid-flight.  

The peregrine falcon is found throughout Australia, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Highly adaptable, the peregrine lives in a greater variety of habitats than any other bird of prey on the planet. From the arid desert zone to the rainforest, the coast to alpine terrain, this falcon will reside happily at sea level but is equally suited to the high altitude of the mountains. 

Australian peregrines are usually sedentary and hold the same territories and nest sites throughout the year. Preferring wide-open woodlands with a water source nearby or coastal or inland cliffs, the peregrine falcon has also adapted well to human settlement and have been known to live on bridges and high buildings within cities. 

Dinner time is a speedy affair for the peregrine, with the bird recording speeds of up to 300km per hour in a dive chasing a meal. The falcon mainly eats other birds that are caught in flight, which are then carried to a perch before being plucked and eaten. 

City dwelling falcons feed on feral pigeons, as well as honeyeaters and some water birds, with all peregrines also dining on rabbits and other small mammals when the opportunity presents. During breeding season, peregrines have been known to hunt in pairs, with the male usually scattering a bird flock, while the female swoops down to snatch a targeted bird to eat. 

Peregrines don’t build nests but instead lay between two and four eggs within a shallow dip in a rock or cliff face, tree hollows, on the ledge of a tall building or in the abandoned nests of other bird species such as the whistling kite. 

Peregrine falcons mate for life and share the duties of incubating and feeding their chicks. A loud scream or “kee-kee-kee-kee” sound is used by peregrines to communicate with their mate. Breeding between August and December, eggs take 30 days to hatch and once the chicks leave the nest after around 35 days, they will travel widely but often return to their original home territory to eventually breed themselves.  

Peregrine falcons have been used by humans in the sport of falconry for over 3000 years. These birds are easily bred in captivity and adapt well to humans who over the centuries have trained them to hunt.  

Related: Magpies, curlews, peregrine falcons: how birds adapt to our cities, bringing wonder, joy and conflict

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Whether or not you believe the common myth that the movement of black-cockatoos means bad weather is on its way, that iconic flash of red under the black tail feathers of a red-tailed-cockatoo is enough to stop any nature enthusiast in their tracks.

This large, glossy cockatoo is jet black, with a heavy bill and is named after its spectacular red to orange tail feathers that resemble a sunset. With a unique crest that protrudes past its bill, this distinguished feathery crown that belongs to the red-tailed black-cockatoo is unlike any other crest within the black cockatoo family. The male is truer to its name and is glossy black in colour with bright red segments in its tail. The female cockatoo is duller in colour and has distinct yellow spots on her wings, neck and head, yellowish barring to the underbody and paler yellowy panels in the tail.     

The red-tailed black-cockatoo is the most widely distributed of the black cockatoos. There are five subspecies that can be found broadly across northern, western, and eastern Australia. A smaller, isolated subspecies occurs within Victoria and South Australia. 

Living happily in a range of habitats, the red-tailed black-cockatoo occurs mainly in eucalyptus forests or woodland areas of fertile riparian flats and floodplains. Also found in grasslands and farmlands, the red-tailed black-cockatoo subspecies has been reported within north-eastern NSW in dry open forest and mixed rainforest-eucalypt forest. 

Known as dispersive birds, the red-tailed black-cockatoo will move away from its birthplace to breed. Seasonal food availability may also impact the movements of this bird.

Seeds make up most of the diet of the red-tailed black-cockatoo, with favoured plants including the eucalyptus, casuarina, acacia and banksia. Birds also eat flowers, fruit berries, nectar and occasionally insects and larvae. Highly nomadic, red-tails spend much of their time searching for stringybark species that have produced a high seed crop.  

Like many species of cockatoo, the red-tailed black-cockatoo will build a nest up high, in tree hollows, dead tree stumps, or at the end of an old trunk, usually of the eucalyptus or melaleuca variety. Uniquely, the red-tailed black-cockatoo will enter the tree hollow tail first, reversing into its nest which is lined with tree fragments and wood dust.   

Breeding for the red-tail takes place all year round, depending on the subspecies of the bird and the location in which they reside. In NSW, eggs have been recorded in May, whereas in the south-eastern subspecies of cockatoo, the graptogyne, breeding takes place between October and May. 

Birds usually lay one egg, or occasionally two, within the nest, and the female incubates this egg for around 30 days. It can take up to three months for red-tailed chicks to fledge or leave the nest, and these juveniles may continue to feed alongside their parents for a further six months. 

During the breeding season, red-tailed black-cockatoos are usually seen alone or in family groups of two and three birds. When an area has a plentiful food supply during the Autumn and Winter periods, flocks of between 100 and 250 birds can be seen feasting on concentrated food supplies. 

Related: Australia’s five black cockatoos

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One of only five species of penguins that make their home on the Antarctic continent, the Adelie penguin is medium in size, with a mostly black body and face with a white belly and white rings around its brown eyes. Its bill is black with an orange base and is covered halfway with feathers.

Adelies are found exclusively within the Antarctic region and breed on the coast of Antarctica as well as on the rocky outcrops of its surrounding islands. The largest population of Adelie penguins can be found in the Ross Sea. During winter, the penguins make their home on the large coastal ice platforms, and travel to coastal beaches or rocky outcrops that are ice-free to nest during the spring and summer months.   

With a changing diet depending on the time of year, Adelie penguins are carnivores that can dive to great depths of up to 175m in search of a meal. Mostly feeding within the upper 70m of the water column, when Adelies are close to the colony their diet consists of mostly fish, amphipods, and crystal krill (Euphausia crystallorophias). Breeding adults can swim between 5 and 120km offshore in search of food for their chicks and these hunting trips consist mainly of catches of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba).

Born to swim, Adelies are sleek and streamline, often taking on the apperance of a torpedo as they maneuverer through the icy waters. Powerful and graceful in the ocean, the modified wings of the Adelie help to propel its body through the water. On land, Adelies are also determined and accomplished long distance walkers that travel across kilometres of ice to make their way to their colonies. Slowly does it, at just 2.5 km/h walking speed, compared to between 4 and 8 km/h within the water, the Adelie penguin takes advantage of snowy covered open terrain by flopping down on its tummy to toboggan.

During the breeding season in springtime, the Adelie penguin begins the journey back to its breeding grounds where it often reunites with the same partner for many consecutive years. Together, along with thousands of other Adelies, these penguin pairs begin to build nests and line them with small pebbles that they find on dry land on the rocky coastline of Antarctica.

Two eggs are laid within the nest and are incubated by both parents for around 36 days. Once the Adelie chicks have hatched, the male penguin continues to help the female to keep the young birds safe, alternating in the role of carer for around four weeks. It’s then, that the young chicks enter a type of penguin creche with other juvenile Adelies, offering protection in numbers whilst the penguin parents return to the open waters in search of food.

Highly social, Adelie penguins stick together in large colonies, where they eat and travel alongside other members of their group. Without a known social structure within the colonies, penguins use displays and posturing to communicate with each other, whilst mated penguins recognise the calls of their mate and their offspring.

Leopard seals, killer whales and south polar skuas are the most common predators of the Adelie penguin, with sheathbills also sometimes taking unguarded eggs. Adelie penguins were once hunted for oil, food and to be used as bait, but are now protected in most countries.   

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The urban legend surrounding this predatory creature centres on the idea that this territorial animal ‘drops’ from the treetops on unsuspecting bush walkers and tourists. Interestingly, the drop bear is so elusive that no one has ever captured or photographed one, alive or dead.   

A relative of the koala, the drop bear is much bigger than the standard phascolarctos cinereus and is more likely to be the size of a large dog or leopard. With course orange fur that has dark mottled patterning, the drop bear is equipped with sharp claws for climbing trees and holding onto prey. This frightening mythical creature has strong premolars and there are mixed reports of pointed fangs that protrude from the animal’s mouth.

Although there have been few verified sightings of the drop bear, they are thought to inhabit closed canopy forests and open woodland areas on the edge of dense forest.

Drop bear populations are thought to exist mainly in southern and eastern Australia, stretching as far north as the Cape York Peninsula, down to forested coastal regions of Tasmania. There have also been reported sightings of drop bears within south-east South Australia, the Mount Lofty Ranges and on Kangaroo Island.

Unlike its herbivore koala cousin, the drop bear is a true carnivore and is understood to feast on medium to large macropods including kangaroos and wallabies. The drop bear has a unique hunting style and will ambush its prey from the leafy tree canopy above. According to the urban legend, this creature will wait patiently for up to four hours in the hope of making a surprise kill.

Once the drop bear has its prey within striking distance, it will plunge as far as eight metres from the treetops and latch onto the neck of its victim. If the impact of the cascading drop bear isn’t enough to stun its unsuspecting victim, the piercing bite on the neck from the drop bear will subdue most prey. Smaller catches will be dragged back up into the tree, where the drop bear can then feed in peace.

Related: Drop bears target tourists, study says

Studies suggest people who are born in Australia are statistically less likely to be attacked by drop bears, leaving tourists and visiting nature enthusiasts more likely to be dropped on. It is thought that although humans are not specifically targeting by the drop bear, several bushwalkers who have wandered off the beaten track have suffered serious lacerations and bites after falling victim to drop bear attacks.

One method largely reported to deter the drop bear is the smearing of vegemite behind the ears, under the armpits or on the nose. Another suggested technique to keep this carnivorous animal at bay, is for bushwalkers to wear forks in their hair. There is little concrete evidence to suggest these repellents actually work, but it seems Australian visitors are willing to try almost anything to keep this mythical marsupial from unexpectantly dropping on top of them from the treetops.     

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Averaging the same size as a domestic cat, the brushtail possum varies in colour and size, depending on where they live. Queensland brushtails are copper-coloured and measure in on the smaller side, whereas their Tasmanian relatives are black or grey and have adapted to the cooler climate by increasing their size and the density of their coat. The majority of brushtail possums are grey with a black band across the snout, a bushy tail, and pointy ears.   

Found throughout Australia, the common brushtail possum lives in wooded areas and forests along Australia’s east coast, eastern South Australia and south-west Western Australia and inland areas along tree-lined creeks and rivers. They are also found in Tasmania, Northern Territory and New Zealand, where this flurry critter was introduced in 1840. The brushtail possum has modified its behaviour to happily live side-by-side with humans and are common within urban areas including campgrounds, suburban backyards, and city parklands.

Enjoying a diet of leaves, shoots and flowers, the brushtail possum has an ability to adapt to its surrounding vegetation and can even eat a range of highly toxic leaves and flowers without issue. With a preference for Eucalyptus flowers, the brushtail will also eat grasses, clover, garden fruits and in more urban areas, food scraps and waste. Natural foragers, the common brushtail is a curious sight during eating, as it often holds food like fruit or flowers within its two front paws whilst enjoying its meal.  

Nocturnal, the common brushtail is active during night-time and spends most of the day sleeping within hollow logs, amongst branches, in a tree trunk or nestled into other darken areas. In urban environments, the common brushtail has been known to seek shelter within house roofs, sheds, gutters or anywhere where an unblocked entrance provides access.

After a very short gestation period of 17 days, female possums give birth between March and November, with the single, furless newborn brushtail finding its way into the mother’s front pouch to latch onto one of two teats. The young possum feeds and grows within the pouch for the next five months, and then enjoys another two months attached to the mother’s back as she goes about her day, before becoming fully independent.

Brushtail possums remain within a distinct ‘home range’ and are mostly solitary creatures. These possums coat trees within their territory with a scent that is released from glands on the chest and communicate primarily through scent and sound. Sharp hisses, piercing screeches and guttural coughs can all be heard from the brushtail, particularly during breeding season or if one possum stumbles across another whilst crossing feeding areas. 

The main threats to the common brushtail possum include dingoes, pythons, foxes and domestic and feral cats. Despite its abundance in numbers and being seen as a pest in some suburban areas, the brushtail possum is a protected species within Australia.

Related: A guide to Australia’s possums and gliders

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Found throughout most of costal Australia, the black rat is a common inhabitant of urban environments but can also make its home within undisturbed patches of coastal land. An agile climber, this rat is often found living in high places like trees, house roofs, and cavity walls but can also make borrows closer to the ground, using shredded paper or other similar materials to form a nest. Unlike other species of rat, the black rat rarely swims and isn’t found in sewer pipes or drains but in almost all other urban environments near the coast, where it carries the reputation of being an invasive pest.

A medium sized rodent, the black rat almost always has a scaly tail that is longer than its body, with large, thin ears to match. Despite its name, the black rat is usually brown or grey in colour with a pale, white belly and its coat is sleek and smooth. Sometimes confused with native marsupial rodents of Australia, look to the front teeth to tell the difference – the black rat is easily set apart by its pair of chisel shaped incisors with hard yellow enamel covering their surface. 

With a generalist unfussy diet, the black rat is nocturnal but can source food at any time of the day or night. Omnivorous, preferring fruit, grains, and other plant materials, within a natural environment, the black rat can also eat insects or other invertebrates when necessary. Within an urban setting, the black rat has adapted to eat most things, and is a known as a pest within farm settings, gnawing through many materials but especially grain and livestock feed, destroying what remains by excreting in it.  

Social animals, groups of black rats usually consist of multiple females and multiple males. Breeding easily in summer and autumn, females can produce as many as five litters every year, with between five and ten young within each. Gestation ranges between 21 and 29 days and young rats are born blind but reach maturity within just three to five months.

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The crucifix frog has a cross shape pattern made from bright red and black dots that adorns its brightly coloured yellow or yellowy green back. With a white underbelly, the male crucifix frog is recognisable thanks to its brown throat. The crucifix frog has a gold iris with a pupil that is horizontal and almost round. Easily mistaken for a intensely coloured, lumpy bouncy ball, the crucifix frog is one of the few Australian frog species that utilises aposematism or the use of brightly coloured patterning to repel its predators.

Found throughout inland New South Wales, west of the ranges and in south-west Queensland, these tiny frogs make their homes in semi-arid grasslands and black soil plains which are rich in clay. The crucifix frog lives most of its life in underground burrows, two to three metres below the surface. When underground, the frog keeps moist by creating a protective cocoon around itself, covering everything except for its nostrils. This barrier is made from layers and layers of skin which prevent the frog from drying out. The cocoon eventually becomes a nutrient-dense meal for the crucifix frog when it devours it before making the journey above ground.

As heavy rains trickle down into the soil, the crucifix frog uses the spades on its small feet to dig towards the surface. The sight of hundreds of brightly coloured mini frogs emerging from the underground to breed, and feed is one of nature’s true delights. Once earth side, the crucifix frog makes its temporary home within puddles, ponds, and flooded areas and wastes none of its short six to eight weeks of life above ground by breeding.

Spring to autumn during times of heavy downpour is the prime breeding season for the crucifix frog. Cooper coloured tadpoles emerge out of eggs that are laid as a cluster at the surface of the water pools. Tadpoles grow to around 5cm in length and gravitate towards the bottom of the water source until they develop into a frog after around six weeks.

Filling their stomachs is also a priority for the crucifix frog once it emerges from its underground state of hibernation. These miniature frogs’ snack on insects, mosquito larvae and tadpoles that are readily found in temporary pooling water. An unusual hunting technique used by the crucifix frog to successfully nab a meal is known as ‘pedal luring.’ This adaption sees the frog remain completely still body, except for its wriggling toes which helps to attract unsuspecting insects.

Crucifix frogs have a sticky reaction to being disturbed by humans or predators, as they release a milky substance known as frog glue from the glands in their skin. Thought to keep would-be predators away, this unique, distasteful, sticky secretion also works to trap a potential meal. Insects that get too close to the sticky frog, become attached to its skin and when the crucifix frog sheds its outer layer, it eats the glue, and the entrapped insects become a bonus snack!     

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Sometimes referred to as the power boobook, the powerful owl has large yellow eyes and no facial disc. Covered in dark greyish brown feathers with distinct off-white markings on top, underneath the powerful owl is white with dark greyish brown V-shaped markings. With feathered legs, the owl’s feet are yellow with black talons that are incredibly strong and capable of holding large prey.

The powerful owl is closely related to the barking owl (Ninox connivens) which is smaller and has vertical streaks across its front. The southern boobook (Ninox novaeseelandiae) is another close bird cousin, with all three identified as ‘hawk owls’ or owls that don’t have the typical facial disk of ‘barn owls.’

The powerful owl is found in eastern and south-eastern Australia. Making its home mainly on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range, from south-eastern Queensland to Victoria, the powerful owl inhabits a range of vegetations from sclerophyll and woodland forest to tall open wet forest and rainforest. This large bird needs old growth trees within its habitat to nest in.

When it comes to mealtime, the powerful owl is a top predator, and prefers to hunt in both open and closed sclerophyll forest or woodland. Medium-sized tree-dwelling marsupials are the preferred source of food, with the greater glider, common ringtail possum and sugar glider topping the list. The powerful owl also eats other roosting birds, which make up between 10 and 50% of their diet, depending on the accessibility of other mammals. Preferring to forage within the treetops, the powerful owl will also swoop down and use its talons to grab unsuspecting small mammals such as rabbits, on the ground.    

The haunting cry of the powerful owl is unmistakable and can be heard throughout the year. More vocal during the autumn breeding period, the owl has a slow, deep double hoot with the female’s call differing slightly with a higher pitch and upward inflection on the second note.  

Loyal and committed, the powerful owl mates for life and in some cases, owl pairs stay together for upwards of 20 years. Working as a team, the powerful owl couple defends their all-purpose territory which can reach between 400ha and 4000 ha depending on the number of tree hollows and available prey within their range.

Nesting for the powerful owl takes place between late autumn and mid-winter, but earlier in north-eastern NSW. It is the male’s job to prepare the nest in a vertical hollow in a large old-growth tree, then maintain a steady supply of food for the female during early nesting. The female powerful owl incubates a clutch of usually two dull white eggs for around 38 days. She then broods the young, eventually leaving the nest to help search for food before the young birds finally leave the parent’s territory some months or even up to a year later.

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At home within the suburban streets, this cheeky marsupial can often be heard running along rooftops or scampering along tree branches with its long, white tipped tail that is distinctly curled when not in use, setting it apart from other possums.

Also known as the eastern ringtail possum, the eastern ringtail is smaller than the common brushtail possum and is about the size of a domestic cat. Grey brown in colour with white patches behind their ears and under their bellies, the eastern ringtail has long, sensitive whiskers and five clawed toes on each foot with the front two feet containing a thumb-like toe that helps with climbing. The long tail of the common ringtail is prehensile which means it can be used as a fifth limb and is strong enough to grasp objects like nesting material.

The eastern ringtail possum can be found along the entire eastern part of Australia, from Queensland, down through New South Wales into Victoria and South Australia. They are also found in southwestern West Australia and Tasmania.

Spending most of their time in trees, the eastern ringtail possum is arboreal and lives within a vast range of habitats including eucalyptus forests, woodlands, rainforests, and urban areas such as residential backyards. During the day, the eastern ringtail sleeps within a ‘drey’ or spherical nest which is made from leaves, branches, and twigs and this hideout may be shared with several other possums. Within suburbia, eastern ringtail possums have also made themselves at home within roof cavities of houses and sheds.

Mostly eating a diet of eucalypts leaves, the eastern ringtail possum is a folivore, meaning a type of herbivore that survives mainly on leaves. The ringtail will also dine on other foods including the flowers, leaves and fruits of other native Australian trees and will eat its own faecal or poo pellets, allowing it to maximise the amount of nutrients it gets from its food.

The eastern ringtail possum breeds between April and November, with both the male and female working together to build a nest. The gestation period for the eastern ringtail is between 20 and 26 days, after which one or two hairless, jellybean sized young are born. The joey will crawl to the mother’s pouch and stay there feeding on her teat for around seven weeks, before taking its place on the mothers back, where it will ride until around six months of age. The eastern ringtail possum is the only species of possum where the male helps care for the young, with the babies transferring to the father’s back whilst the mother feeds.   

Threats to the eastern ringtail possum include powerlines, cars, and invasive animals such as foxes, cats, and dogs. Building a possum box within local suburban backyards can provide safe shelter for the eastern ringtail possum and as territorial animals, if one ringtail possum adopts the nesting box, it is likely to deter other ringtails from the nearby house roof and garden.        

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With over 2400 species of wolf spider across the globe, Australia is thought to be home to around 130 of these, with the Tasmaniacosa godeffroyi and Venatrix furcillata two of the most common.

Wolf spiders are typically dark and mottled in colour with patterned markings like radiating lines on the front of the body or scroll like patterns on the abdomen in brown, black, grey, yellow, or white.

Ranging in size, wolf spiders have three rows of dark eyes with four smaller ones at the front, and another four in a square shape on the top of their high, convex head.

Wolf spiders are an adaptive arachnid and are found right across Australia, within a vast number of habitats including open woodlands, grasslands, wet coastal forests, alpine meadows, and inlands scrublands. Some species of wolf spider, including the Lycosa furcillata and Tasmanicosa godeffroyi are also common within residential backyards.

Wolf spiders can traverse a wide range of land as they disperse aerially as spiderlings or small juveniles, and this contributes to a widespread distribution of the spider.  

As they spend most of their time on the ground, wolf spiders blend into decaying leaf matter as well as sticks and pebbles. Many wolf spider species live in a burrow that can be up to 25cm deep and is excavated slowly by the spider, using its fangs. Some burrows have a trapdoor made from small stones, twigs, or other organic material. 

Active at night, wolf spiders hunt their prey, and this is where the name ‘wolf spider’ originates. Other ground dwelling creatures such as crickets, ants, and small spiders make up much of their diet, although some larger wolf spiders have been known to stray from the invertebrate menu and feed on small vertebrates like frogs, and lizards, and even cane toads sometimes ending up on the dinner plate, particularly for the species Allocosa obscuroides. Once the wolf spider catches their prey, they either inject it with venom or mash it into a ball before ingesting it.    

Wolf spiders’ mate outside the females’ burrow at night-time, with the male spider attracted by scent markings left by the female. The male wolf spider engages in a courtship ritual where it waves its pedipalps and front legs in the air and once mating takes place, the female creates a silk mat and deposits around 100 eggs into it, before rolling it into a ball and attaching it to her abdomen.

The female will then carry around her precious cargo until the eggs hatch and her spiderlings crawl onto her back. The baby spiders remain on top of their mother until they use up their fat reserves, forcing them to go off and look for food independently.  

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Shy and nocturnal, the rakali is the largest member of the Australian native rodent family and is also uniquely, one of Australia’s only mammals to safely enjoy a meal of the highly toxic cane toad. 

Although often confused with a land rat, the rakali behaves more like the otter or platypus. With waterproof fur that repels the water and dries quickly once on land, rakali are black to brown with an orange to white belly and a white tipped dark tail.

With a body shape perfectly adapted to glide through the water, the rakali is elongated and streamlined with small ears that can be folded against its head. A thick tail that acts like a rudder, along with partially webbed hind feet, make the rakali perfectly suited to its aquatic environment. 

The rakali is found throughout Australia, in places where there is a permanent fresh water source all year long. Making their home in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, far north and southwest Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Victoria, within lakes, estuaries, and rivers. Rakalis are also found in Papua New Guinea and Indonesian West Papua. 

An adaptable animal that is resilient, the rakali can survive in most conditions, even polluted waterways and has been noted to live side-by-side with humans in highly populated areas. Being a semi-aquatic mammal has allowed this water rat to allude would-be predators by hiding on both land or in waterways.  

Living within a burrow on the low banks of waterways, the rakali needs plenty of riparian vegetation and bank stability to survive. With a home range of between 1 and 4 kms of the waterway, the rakali is a mostly solitary animal that is territorial.

The rakali has a collection of whiskers that surround its face, which are highly sensitive and help it to forage underwater at night. The dinner menu is varied and long, and includes fish, aquatic insects, aquatic plants, crayfish, clams, mussels, crabs and even water birds and their eggs, frogs, and turtles. 

But one toxic dinner preference has seen the rakali be the subject of studies and research, after it was found feasting on the highly poisonous cane toad. Intelligent and resourceful, the water rat flips the toad over to avoid the poisonous glands found on the back of the toad’s neck and uses surgical-like precision to neatly remove the heart, liver, and toxic gall bladder before eating the rest. 

Like most native rodents, the rakali produces several litters of young each year when conditions are favourable, after reaching maturity at 1 year old. Litters usually consist of 2 to 4 young which arrive in the warmer months of the year, around one month after mating in late winter or early spring.

This semi-aquatic mammal plays an important role in Australia’s ecosystem. Rakali eat fungi and help to spread the fungi spores throughout the soil through their droppings. These spores then allow native plants to extract water and nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen from the soil in which they grow. 

Related: Here are 7 clever Aussie native rodents

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With dark brown plumage on the top part of its body and pale feathers on the head and under the wings, the eastern osprey has a distinct black line which can be traced from the throat to the eye and ends in a dark patch around the ear.

The female osprey tends to be larger than the male, and has darker, dabbled brownish patches on the breast. A smallish head and neck are a feature of this bird, and it often swivels them around or sways its head from side to side.

The wings of the eastern osprey are also unique, finished with finger-like shaped feathers that reach around 180cm when in flight and are sharply bowed.

The eastern osprey is found within a narrow strip of habitat which all but circles the coastline of Australia, except for Tasmania and Victoria.

These birds are also at home on offshore islands and sometimes at open river systems and beyond the tidal plains.

Most common on the northern coast, osprey love rocky terrain that borders the ocean, as well as islands and reefs and tend to steer clear of heavily populated areas of south-eastern Australia.

Excellent anglers, the eastern osprey survives on a diet of fish. With a fishing success rate as high as 70 percent, scientists have recorded the eastern osprey catching fish on at least one in every four dives.

A common sight on the shorelines of eastern Australia, the osprey patrols the oceans on the hunt for medium-sized fish, before folding its wings in, and dramatically diving towards the water headlong with its feet forward. 

Either completely entering the sea or hovering above its surface, the eastern osprey grabs its fish meal with its strong talons before using its powerful wings to return to the skies and eventually land to eat its find. The eastern osprey doesn’t enjoy its catch whole, but rather rips the fish apart with its feet. Unlike other hawks, ospreys have a reversible outer toe that helps them hold onto food with two toes in front, and two toes behind.

A large nest sometimes up to 2 metres wide, made of sticks, driftwood and seaweed will see an eastern osprey return for many years to nest and rear its chicks. These nests are built on a cliff face, a dead tree or in suburban areas on manmade structures like radio towers, telegraph poles or even especially designed nest platforms made purposely for nesting ospreys.

The female bird incubates between 2 and 3 white eggs with brown blotches for around 40 days, while the male raptor brings food to the nest. The juvenile ospreys stay with the mother bird until they learn to fly at around 9 weeks. 

Eastern ospreys are mostly solitary birds but they also pair with a breeding partner. With their mate they can be noisy flying together and whilst occupying their nest, with harsh screams or a repeated reedy whistle call filling the skies. The eastern osprey also has a unique adaptation called a nictitating membrane or third eyelid, essentially acting like a pair of goggles, allowing the bird to close this eyelid and see under water! 

Related: Feathered geniuses: birds are much smarter than we think

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Although recognised worldwide, the corroboree frog is only found within a small area of south-eastern New South Wales. The Southern corroboree frog is found in the Snowy Mountains Regions of Kosciusko National Park in New South Wales at altitudes between 1300 and 1700 metres, with the northern corroboree frog found in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory within Kosciuszko National Park, Bondo State Forest, Micalong State Forest, Wee Jasper State Forest, Namadgi National Park, Brindabella National Park and Bimberi Nature Reserve. 

The corroboree frog survives in a variety of habitats including montane forest, sub-alpine woodland, and tall heath close to breeding areas. Breeding can take place within wet tussock grasslands, ferns, and wet heath, as well as pools and seepages in sphagnum bogs – some of which are dry during the breeding season. Often found seeking shelter under layered leaf litter, or logs or rocks, the corroboree frog can travel over 300metres into nearby woodland after breeding. 

This paperclip-sized frog has distinct longitudinal stripes of yellow or green, alternating with black along the upper side of their back. The southern corroboree frog always has bright yellow stripes, while the stripes of the northern corroboree frog can range from yellow to lime green. The underside of both species is marked with black, yellow, or lime green and has white blotches. The two species differ in colour patterns, morphology, and skin biochemistry. Tadpoles from both species are dark with a long paddle shaped tail and will grow to 30mm in length.  

When it comes to dinner time, the nocturnal corroboree frog enjoys a meal of small invertebrate. Favouring small black ants, this colourful amphibian will also munch on beetles, and insect larvae. Corroboree frog tadpoles play an important role within the alpine ecosystem by eating algae, helping to keep ponds clean and nutrient rich for other flora and fauna. 

Just like other amphibians, the corroboree frog begins life as a tadpole before developing into a frog. Eggs enter a diapause stage where the embryos pause in development until the nests containing the eggs are flooded thanks to autumn or winter rains, stimulating them to hatch. Moving out of the nest site, the tadpoles then live for the rest of their larval period as a free swimming and feeding tadpole, until metamorphosis in summer.       

The bright colours that make the corroboree frog so beautiful have a more sinister purpose, helping the amphibian to warn would-be predators that their skin is in fact extremely poisonous. The corroboree frog’s vibrant yet toxic skin produces and secretes alkaloids that are poisonous to mammals who attempt to get too close. 

With less than 50 individual southern corroboree frogs left in the wild, both species of the corroboree frog are listed as critically endangered. Weed invasion, changing weather patterns due to climate change, habitat loss or degradation from forestry and introduced pest species such as feral pigs and horses have all had a negative impact on population numbers of corroboree frog across their ranges. 

The corroboree frog has been most severely impacted however, by the deadly disease chytridiomycosis, that is caused by infection with the amphibian chytrid fugus or Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Transmitted through water systems or other animals, this lethal disease attacks the frog’s skin and heart. Captive breeding programs have been developed in an attempt to save this special species from extinction. 

Related: 20 Aussie frogs you need to know about

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Living up to its devilish name, this unique creature is known to fly into a rage if under threat, where it may bare its teeth, growl, and even lunge at would-be predators. Despite these wild personality traits, the Tasmanian devil is more often solitary and shy, preferring to keep well out of the spotlight (and boxing ring!).

Around the same size as a small dog, these stocky marsupials have dark brown to black fur with a large white stripe across their chest and the odd white spot on their sides or rear end. The Tasmanian devil has longer front legs with thick, short hind legs giving the animal a lumbering gait when it walks. With a short muzzle, devils have long whiskers, dark eyes, and pink inside their ears. 

Found exclusively in Tasmania, the Tasmanian devil is thought to have disappeared from mainland Australia around 400 years ago. While it doesn’t live on neighbouring offshore islands around Tasmania, there are some marsupials kept in captivity within other states of Australia. Across Tasmania, devils are found in all native habitats and make their homes in pastures, forestry plantations, open forest and woodlands that range from the coast to the highest mountain peaks. 

Crafting their den in underground burrows, within thick grass tussocks and caves or dense riparian vegetation, the Tasmanian devil occupies a number of different dens, changing their home every one to three days and travelling on average 8km a night to do so. 

Tasmanian devils leave nothing to waste and are mostly carrion eaters, which means they feed of dead animals. Primarily nocturnal, these specialised scavengers will eat the carcasses of a range of animals, but mostly possums and macropods, with some devils travelling up to 16km each night in search of food. The Tasmanian devil is also an opportunistic predator and will usually hunt solo, tending to prey on slow animals such as injured or sick wallabies or smaller livestock like lambs, using a combination of ambush tactics and pursuit.

With powerful jaws and sharp teeth, Tasmanian devils are well known to finish their meal in its entirety, gulping down flesh, hair, and even crunching bones. A dead animal carcass will often bring these solitary marsupials together, resulting in a noisy display of eating with the odd tussle between devils a given. Each individual devil will jostle for the premier dining spot or assert its dominance over the other animals during this raucous communal meal-time display.  

Breeding once per year between February and June, the Tasmanian devil mates and then raises its young within its den. The female devil will give birth to more than twenty tiny juveniles, but with only four teats for feeding, only a few babies will survive. As a marsupial, the mother feeds her young within her pouch for up to four months, after which the joeys hitch a ride on her back for the next few months before being fully independent at nine months of age.   

Now a protected species, the Tasmanian devil was once hunted in their thousands in the 1800s, by farmers concerned about their livestock. Although this stoic creature has survived, the Tasmanian devil is now listed as endangered under Tasmania’s Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 (May 2008). The red fox, low genetic diversity as well as deaths by road vehicles have threatened Tasmanian devil populations but the infectious, spreading cancer known as Devil Facial Tumour Disease is the main culprit for a decrease in devil numbers. Discovered in the mid 1990’s and spread through mating and fighting, DFTD sees tumours grow around the Tasmanian devil’s face and neck, ultimately stopping the animal from eating and causing a slow death from starvation often within six months.        

Related: Tasmanian devils: four things you may not know

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A popular pet choice right across the world, this cockatoo can be taught to ‘talk’ and is known to live to a ripe old age, with some birds making it to their 100^th birthday whilst in captivity!

An unmistakable white plumage and distinctive sulphur-yellow crest has transformed this cockatoo into a national icon, and the image of this recognisable species is regularly used on everything from clothing to bedlinen, artworks to stationary. With a dark-grey black bill, the sulphur-crested cockatoo also has soft, pale-yellow feathers on the underside of its wings, which are revealed during flight. 

Sulphur-crested cockatoos can be found throughout the northern, eastern, and south-eastern mainland of Australia, as well as Tasmania. There is a small number of the birds that have taken up residency around Perth, Western Australia, and this species also inhabits Papua New Guinea and the Aru Islands. The sulphur-crested cockatoo has been introduced to Indonesia and New Zealand. 

Making its home within a large variety of tree-filled habitats, the sulphur-crested cockatoo is adaptable and versatile. A non-migratory bird, this cockatoo stays within the same home-range year-round. Sulphur-crested cockatoos live easily side by side with human settlement and can be found living within cities, as well as urban and farming areas.

When it comes to food, the sulphur-crested cockatoo is a communal eater, preferring to dine in small to large groups in the morning or late afternoon. Berries, grass seeds, nuts, plants, and insects make up the menu, but this curious species has also become accustomed to enjoying the odd hand-out from humans. 

These cockatoos have a clever natural alarm system that allows them to feed on the ground in peace, with at least one bird positioning itself within a nearby tree to keep watch over the others. If the lookout bird senses a predator close by or that danger is immanent, it will let out an almighty screech, alerting the feeding birds to take flight. 

The sulphur-crested cockatoo is considered a pest in some suburban settings, thanks to the damage it causes to maintain its beak. The bird will regularly bite off smaller leaves and branches from trees, leaving behind a trail of destruction. But the method behind the mess comes from the fact that the parrot’s beak continuously grows, and the chewing of branches and leaves helps to keep it trimmed and tidy. 

Hollows within old or dead trees provide the perfect space for the sulphur-crested cockatoo to nest. Both the female and male bird will prepare the nest. The female cockatoo will lay between one and four eggs and again, both parents help to incubate and care for the hatched chicks. Juvenile cockatoos are covered in pale yellow down and stay close to their parents as they grow, with family groups staying together indefinitely. 

The sound of the sulphur-crested cockatoo is distinct and loud, with its screech ending with a slight upwards inflection. Most vocal as they roost in the early morning and late afternoon, cockatoo flocks have their own resting site where they usually sleep and return to for life. 

Related: Sulphur-crested cockatoos: Australian icon

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One of the larger sharks to peruse the sea, the tiger shark is a scavenger by nature and feeds in shallow water, making it dangerous to humans who enjoy an ocean dip although fatalities from shark bite are still considered rare. 

Named after the dark, vertical stripes that cover its sides and back, this distinguishable feature of the tiger shark typically fades as the shark ages.

This mighty shark has a broad, blunt head which plays host to a series of sickle-shaped teeth that are similar in both the upper and lower jaw.

With a slender body that easily slips through the water, the tiger shark has an angular, hooked tail that helps it to manoeuvre quickly to catch fast prey.

Equipped with a sophisticated sensory system, the tiger shark has excellent eyesight, and highly developed sense of smell and taste and can even detect electricity.  

Making its home in tropical and sub-tropical waters worldwide, the tiger shark will visit temperate waters seasonally. Within Australia, the tiger shark is known to frequent waters from Windy Harbour in south western Western Australia, around the tropical north and down the east coast until the southern coast of New South Wales.

Showing a wide tolerance for different marine environments, the tiger shark may swim between shallow coastal waters and deep oceanic habitats but prefers turbid waters on or near the continental and insular shelves.  

When it comes to catching a bite, the tiger shark is on the move during the night-time hours, moving inshore to shallow waters to feed nocturnally, then moving back out to deeper water when daylight arrives.

Related: VIDEO: Tiger shark feeding frenzy in WA

With a hugely varied diet, the tiger shark doesn’t discriminate when it comes to its prey and are known predators with a voracious appetite. From turtles, molluscs and seabirds to sea snakes, seals and fish in all shapes and sizes, the tiger shark has also been known to feast on human rubbish. 

Consummate scavengers, tiger sharks have highly attuned senses, sharp serrated teeth, and powerful jaws, making them a threat to most marine life that share their waters. Sometimes referred to as the Trash Cans of the Sea, the tiger shark will eat just about anything and will hunt and devour prey just for fun, even when they’re not hungry.

Scientists have discovered a wide range of strange items inside the stomachs of these eager eaters, including pieces of boats and ships, tires, oil cans, clothing and even books. 

Naturally aggressive, the tiger shark won’t hesitate to attack if it feels threatened. Unlike the great white shark which has a distain for human flesh, the tiger shark isn’t so picky and will likely stick around and finish the job if it happens to take a bite out of an unlucky human.    

Giving birth to live young, the tiger shark produces a large litter of offspring numbering between 10 and 82 pups about once every two years, after a 12-16month gestation period. Pups are slender at birth and have clearly defined vertical ‘tiger’ stripes and are between 51 and 76cm in length.

The tiger shark is slow to grow and mature, making it vulnerable to declines in population numbers from overfishing. With lower levels of mercury in their bodies than other shark species, the tiger shark is harvested in large numbers for their fins, skin, and flesh and is listed as near threatened. 

Related: Tiger sharks in need of protection

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A living link to the ancestors of our modern-day macropods, Australia is home to two species of tree kangaroo, the Lumholtz’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus lumholtzi) and the Bennett’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus bennettianus). 

The Lumholtz’s has long, muscley forearms for climbing and short, wide back feet. Their front feet have curved claws and back feet have soft pads that mould around tree trunks to help with climbing. With reddish-grey fur and a long bushy tail, the Lumholtz’s tree kangaroo has short round ears that give its face a teddy bear-like appearance. 

The Bennett’s tree kangaroo is bigger than its cousin and is grey brown with a black underside. With a long bushy, black tail that has a coloured spot at the end, the Bennett’s tree kangaroo has a greyish face with black hands and feet. Like the Lumholtz’s, the Bennett’s tree kangaroo also has shorter hindlimbs and longer forearms. 

These two species of tree kangaroo are Australia’s only tree-dwelling macropods and are found high in the tree canopy of the wet tropic rainforests of far north-eastern Queensland. The Lumholtz’s makes its home in the fragmented forests of the Atherton Tablelands between the Cardwell Range and Mount Carbine, and the Bennett’s lives north of the Daintree River in a small area of wet tropics.

Related: VIDEO: Tree kangaroo’s expert climbing skills

Records from tree kangaroo fossils found across Australia indicate that this unusual tree-dwelling kangaroo was once found right across the country, in both rainforest and dry-forest habitats and were represented by a larger number of species than those that exist today. 

Nocturnal, tree kangaroos love a good snooze and spend around 60% of their time sleeping. But these fury critters aren’t ones to muck around building a nest or comfy bed to nap in, instead they crouch, or sleep hunched over a branch high in the tree canopy during the day.  

Related: Life from a tree kangaroo’s perspective

Tree kangaroos are herbivores that survive on a diet of leaves, ferns, roots, and seasonal fruit. Agile climbers, these marsupials spend most of their time in the tops of the forest and move slowly, yet easily amongst the trees thanks to their strong forearms and long tails which help them to balance. Able to jump long distances between trees with ease, sometimes up to nine metres, tree kangaroos aren’t so graceful on the ground and tend to walk with an awkward hop.   

Preferring a solitary existence, Australian tree kangaroos give birth to one joey per year. Little is known about the specific breeding habits of these elusive macropods, yet scientists believe that both the Lumholtz’s and Bennett’s tree kangaroos are likely to be opportunistic breeders, with no set breeding season due to the similarities in weather all year round in far north Queensland. The tree kangaroo calf lives in its mother’s pouch for around nine months and is fully weaned after a further three to eight months. The young joey will stay with its mum for another year or so, before females become sexually mature at around two years. 

Pythons and dingoes are the main predators of the tree kangaroo. Deforestation which leads to habitat fragmentation is also an ongoing threat to these unique tree-dwellers, as is the consequences of climate change.         

Related: Tree kangaroos: best photos ever taken

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Easily identifiable thanks to its spines, these modified hairs cover the entire body as well as the short tail of the short-beaked echidna and range in colour from cream to black.

With a thick reddish to dark brown fur underneath, the short-beaked echidna has a varying number of spines depending on the climate in which it lives, with those calling cooler areas home having denser hair than those living in warmer habitats.

Related: Why do echidnas swim?

The short-beaked echidna has a rigid and hard tubular snout with its toothless mouth positioned right at the end. It’s sticky, saliva covered tongue can measure up to 17cm long and pokes in and out of the echidna’s mouth, slurping up ants and other insects. 

Short-beaked echidnas have short, stubby legs and the front feet have five flattened claws that are often used to break open logs and termite mounds and to dig burrows. The hind feet face backwards, a clever adaption which helps this resourceful mammal push the soil away when burrowing.

Although shy and preferring to go about their business without much fuss, the short-beaked echidna is found across most parts of Australia and Tasmania, from deserts to rainforests, grasslands, and woodlands to alpine habitats. The only other species of echidna, the long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bruijni) is endemic to New Guinea. The wide-ranging survival of the short-beaked echidna is linked to its ability to thrive in extreme temperatures by burrowing into the soil, sheltering in logs, hiding under vegetation, and finding shelter under rocks and abandoned rabbit and wombat burrows. 

The short-beaked echidna enjoys a diet of ants and termites, using its sharp claws and strong snout to crack into mounds, nests, and tree logs, where it then slurps up its prey with its long, sticky tongue. Taking advantage of the cooler parts of the day, the short-beaked echidna feeds in the early morning and late evening, relying on its attuned sense of smell to locate its next meal. 

Related: Echidna trains: explained

As a monotreme, the short-beaked echidna lays one soft-shelled egg at a time in her backwards facing pouch which hatches after ten days. The juvenile echidna or ‘puggle’ is born hairless and blind and is the size of a jellybean. The puggle is carried in the mother’s pouch for three months, suckling from specialised pores because short-beaked echidnas don’t have nipples. The puggle will eventually leave the pouch when its tiny spines begin to sprout and will wean completely at around 12 months of age. 

Slow moving, the short-beaked echidna is prone to being hit by cars, and is also under threat from habitat loss, but in the wild, these unusual creatures don’t have any true natural predators. If under threat, this echidna will roll into a spikey ball and lodge itself in a rock crevice or hole in a log or dig a shallow hole and lay with its sharp spines exposed – a tired and tested method of keeping itself safe. 

Related: ‘How many assumptions have been made?’ There’s a lot we don’t know about echidnas

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More than just a sweet face, the eastern pygmy possum is an agile climber that plays the important role of pollinator, helping to maintain the health of the bush.

The eastern pygmy possum might be the size of a golf ball, but this tree dwelling critter is well equipped to fend for itself thanks to its almost bare prehensile tail, which can grip and curl easily, acting as a fifth limb.

With big, forward pointing ears, the eastern pygmy possum has light brown or fawn coloured fur on top and a white underbelly. Three sets of upper incisors and one pair of lower incisors fill their tiny mouth and large, bulging eyes and long whiskers add to the appeal of this tiny creature. 

Sometimes mistaken as a rat or a mouse, the eastern pygmy possum can be found in south-eastern Australia, from southern Queensland, down to eastern South Australia and into Tasmania. Within New South Wales, this species of pygmy possum can be found inland from the coast as far as Pilliga, Dubbo, Parkes, and Wagga Wagga.

When it comes to setting up house, the eastern pygmy possum isn’t overly fussy and can be found in a wide range of habitats from woodlands, heaths, and rainforests, to sclerophyll forests (including Box-Ironbark).

Spending most of their hours high up in the treetops, the eastern pygmy possum prefers areas with a rich shrub understory and although breeding females build nests, they tend to shelter in tree hallows, rotten stumps, abandoned bird nests, holes in the ground and thick clumps of vegetation like grass-tree skirts. 

Nocturnal, the eastern pygmy possum enjoys dinner after dark, feasting on nectar and pollen from eucalyptus, banksias, and bottlebrushes. If flowers are in short supply such as in wet forest habitats, these pygmy possums will eat fruit, seeds, or even insects. When the pygmy possum is well fed and food is plentiful, its long tail will swell with extra fat, and this can be drawn upon when the possum needs a boost. 

Young eastern pygmy possums are born mostly during late spring to late autumn, when food supplies are readily available. The female eastern pygmy possum will construct a small round nest by lining a safe, supported space like the fork in a tree or tree hollow with shredded bark and gives birth to between three and eight young. The young stay safe in the mother’s pouch for around 30 days and are weaned after 60 days and shortly afterwards, become independent at around 10 grams in size. 

During times of stress or lack of food over winter, the eastern pygmy possum can enter a hibernation-like state known as torpor. This is when the animal decreases its metabolism in order to reduce its energy expenditure, usually doing so curled in a tight ball within its nest, giving the appearance of being in a deep sleep.   

Related: A guide to Australia’s adorable pygmy-possums

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This carefree mammal is in its element leaping from the ocean and is listed as the most abundant cetacean in the world with over six million common dolphins perusing the global oceans. 

Easily set apart from other dolphin species, the common dolphin is slender and streamlined in shape, with a long beak protruding sharply from its head.

This ocean mammal has a unique crisscrossed colour pattern on the top, consisting of dark grey to black over the back of the animal, buff to pale yellow forming an anterior patch, light to medium grey on the sides and a white underbelly.

These mammals have a high dorsal fin which curves backwards, and male common dolphins are slightly larger than females.  

Just like other global populations of cetaceans (large sea creatures), taxonomy can be controversial. Three species of common dolphin are recognised within the genus at present – Delphinus delphis, Delphinus capensis and Delphinus tropicalis. Differences in morphology separate the species, for example D.delphis is a short-beaked offshore form, whereas D.capensis is a long-beaked coastal from, and D. tropicalis has a unique number of teeth and skeleton differences that set it apart.    

Most often found in medium sized groups or pods of between 20-30 dolphins to up to more than a thousand, the common dolphin is found in offshore waters surrounding all states and territories of Australia, but they aren’t common in northern Australian waters. With a preference for temperate and tropical waters, the common dolphin favours the Atlantic and Oceanic Oceans, which surrounds the continental shelf and pelagic waters.

The diet of the common dolphin consists mainly of squid and small school fish such as sardines, pilchards, and anchovies and this can vary depending on the seasons, as well as the region in which the dolphin inhabits. 

As social creatures, they can often be seen feeding together and take advantage of the movement of their prey, by feeding at night. The common dolphin will drive their swarming prey to the surface and during this state of confusion and chaos, enjoy an easy meal, with surface predators like birds taking advantage of this behaviour and also feeding at this time.  

Common dolphins have adapted to human activity by taking advantage of the presence of fishing trawlers, but there is a very real risk of incidental capture and death within fishing nets and with other fishing gear for the dolphin. 

The gestation time for a common dolphin calf is around a year, with the baby drinking milk from its mother for at least another year after that. It is thought that calving occurs all year round in tropical waters, with births in cooler regions more likely to take place in late spring and early summer.  

Highly social and playful mammals, the common dolphin is regarded as a highly acrobatic species of dolphin and will regularly leap, tail slap, and head lunge into the water as they travel. These marine animals also use squeaks, whistles and echolocative clicks, and burst pulse emissions to communicate amongst each another and for navigation and feeding purposes.      

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Ranging in colour from different shades of brown, the eastern brown snake can be almost black to grey, from dark brown to light tan.The underside of the snake is either cream, yellow or a pale orange and some of these reptiles have darker orange, grey or brown blotches.

Despite some individuals growing a whopping two metres in length, the eastern brown is considered a medium-sized snake and has a slender body with a small head. 

The eastern brown snake makes its home throughout eastern Australia from northern Queensland to South Australia, but not within Tasmania. They also have an isolated population within central and western Northern Territory.

Preferred habitats include Eucalyptus forests, savannah woodlands, pastureland, coastal heathlands, and inner grasslands, with these snakes having adapted well to also survive in farmed, semi-urban and grazed environments. Land clearing due to agriculture has created ideal living conditions for the eastern brown snake, thanks to a ready supply of rodent meals and although they play the role of pest controller well, farmers still regard the increased presence of these snakes as dangerous.

Most active during the day (diurnal) the eastern brown snake can move at a surprisingly fast speed when the weather is warm. This daytime activity, especially on sunny days, makes this reptile the most frequently encountered venomous snake in Australia, as it hunts by day and returns to its burrow at night. With a diet of mostly small mammals, frogs, reptiles, reptile eggs and birds, the eastern brown has a particular preference for rodents including introduced rats and mice.

As the weather cools, the eastern brown snake takes refuge inside its burrow for between four to five months, but despite this, some snakes have been documented basking in the sun on mild winter days. 

When the breeding season begins in mid-late spring, the eastern brown snake will take part in a type of combat dance with another snake to assert its dominance. The winning male will then mate with the females within the local territory, who will go on to lay clutches of up to 30 eggs in late spring or early summer. Temperature plays a large role in the time eggs take to hatch, with the incubation period varying between 36 to 95 days. Born with distinct bands on the head and neck, hatchlings do vary in body pattern and are born with an innate threat display that the eastern brown species is known for.  

The eastern brown can react defensively if they are surprised or cornered by a human, and this happens more often compared to less active species of venomous Australian snakes, due to their natural living range overlapping with highly populated areas of the country.

If threatened the snake can raise its head and even its anterior part of the body off the ground to face the danger square on and spreads its neck before striking. Although the bite is often painless, the venom of the eastern brown is potent and medical attention should be sought immediately.        

Related: Australia’s 10 most dangerous snakes

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A medium sized burrowing marsupial, the greater bilby is about the size of a rabbit and has a long, pointed nose, silky pale, blue-grey fur with a creamy-tan underbelly and a black and white tail that can measure up to 29cm long. The greater bilby’s large, pinkish ears have become somewhat of a trademark, with the animal sometimes referred to as the rabbit-eared bandicoot. Far more than superficial, these large easter bunny-like ears are responsible for regulating body temperature as well as providing the greater bilby with exceptionally sharp hearing, which makes up for the fact that the greater bilby can’t see very well.  

Initially there were two species of bilby, the greater bilby and the lesser bilby (Macrotis leucura) but the lesser bilby is understood to have become extinct in the 1950s. Once inhabiting up to 70% of the Australian landscape, the arrival of introduced predators including foxes and domestic cats, along with food competition from domestic rabbits, mean the greater bilby is under threat and can now only be found within specific, disjunct locations of the country – the Tanami Desert within the Northern Territory, the stony soils of the Mitchell grasslands of southwest Queensland and sites within Western Australia, including the Great Sandy and Gibson Deserts, parts of the Pilbara and the Kimberly.  

The greater bilby thrives in a range of different dry, hot habitats across Australia from the arid and rocky soils found within the desert with little ground cover, to semi-arid shrublands and woodlands, hummock and tussock grasslands, Acicia shrublands and sandstone ridges. Greater bilbies are known as fossorial which means they can be found within rocky and clayey soils.    

Able to survive without drinking water, the greater bilby gets all the hydration it needs through its food. An opportunistic feeder, these marsupials eat whatever they can find, including the seeds of Dactyloctenium radulans and Yakirra australiense grasses, fruit, bulbs, small insects such as ants, spiders, termites plus lizards, fungai and sometimes small mammals, snails, and eggs. With their enormous ear against the ground, the greater bilby can hear burrowing insects below the ground, and then use their claws to dig a series of holes between 10 and 25cm deep, in search of food. 

Nocturnal, the greater bilby shelters within its long and intricate burrow system during the day to avoid the heat and any would-be predators. Burrows are shared by other local native animals, with the bilby digging a new burrow every few weeks, some as long as three metres and as deep as two metres.       

The greater bilby tends to live a solitary life but can breed throughout the year depending on environmental conditions. The female bilby has a backwards facing pouch, like the koala and the wombat, to stop dirt from entering during digging. With a short gestation period of 14 days, female bilbies can give birth up to four times a year, usually with one or two newborns per litter.

The juvenile bilbies attach to a teat in the mother’s pouch and become fully weaned at around 13 to 15 weeks. The young will then live in the burrow with the mother for a few more weeks, sharing food from her hunting trips. Female bilbies become sexually mature at five months of age, sparking the start of the breeding cycle all over again. 

Related: Tracking the evolutionary history of our once carnivorous bilbies and bandicoots

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A member of the orb weaving family, the St Andrew’s cross, like its orb relatives, is known for creating circular-shaped webs. St Andrew’s cross spiderwebs are easy to spot, thanks to their X-shape within the centre which is known as a stabilimentum, there’s looking like the St Andrew’s cross on the Scottish flag. 

It’s the female spider that draws admiration from onlookers, as she is larger in size and has a silvery carapace, with a yellow, black, red, and white striped abdomen with brown and black banded legs that are grouped together in pairs. Compared to the female which measures in at 16mm in length, the male is more meagre at 4mm in length and is brown and cream in colour.

Juvenile brown and cream spiderlings begin their web designing journey by creating a circular stabilimentum that looks much like a lace doily. This web allows the spider a certain amount of camouflage as well as protection from the sun, and as the spider matures, the ‘doily’ design slowly transforms into the more well-known cross shape. 

Found on the east-coast of Australia, from Queensland, throughout New South Wales and down into Victoria, St Andrew’s cross spiders inhabit backyards, shrubby bush, open forests as well as rainforest fringes. 

With a web of up to one metre in diameter, these orb spiders build their home between low shrubby vegetation and occupy their creation by day and night. It isn’t clear why the St Andrew’s cross produces its unique web, but theories suggest the white silk cross pattern may deter predators as it makes the spider look bigger than it is, or alternatively, that the bluish white silk attracts flying insects into the web as it reflects ultraviolet light. 

Feeding on a range of insects, St Andrew’s cross spiders secure their prey by wrapping it into a neat parcel before biting it, then digesting it, or hanging it nearby for later. Bees, bugs, butterflies, moths, crickets, and flies are all on the menu and these spiders are considered an important part of the ecosystem for controlling insect populations. 

A tasty meal for wasps and birds, the St Andrew’s cross spider will either bungee from its web if it feels threatened or shake the web dramatically to create a blurry effect which may confuse would-be predators.   

Related: What to do if you find a spider: complete guide

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Once common along coastal lowland areas of eastern New South Wales and Victoria, an amphibian chytrid fungus, along with habitat fragmentation, degradation, and the disappearance of large portions of habitat altogether, has seen numbers of the green and golden bell frog dramatically reduce. The frog is now only found in small populations within the Sydney Basin, northern coastal New South Wales, Broughton Island, a small number of locations in the southeast highlands and coast including Batemans Bay, East Gippsland Lowlands and South East Coastal Ranges, Sydney and south-eastern Victoria. 

Relying heavily on different habitats for certain times within their lifecycle, the green and golden bell frog takes up residence in specific places according to when they breed, search for food, and over the winter period. Marshes, dams, and calm streams are some of the preferred places that this frog chooses to reside, with water bodies preferably unshaded, grassy areas nearby, and free from predators like the plague minnow. Other predators of the green and gold bell frog include snakes and various wading birds.

The green and gold bell frog eats a range of insects such as spiders, crickets, beetles, damselflies, butterflies, and ants. This species also preys on other frogs, actively locating them by the sound of their call and they have been known to also eat juvenile frogs from their own species.    

Quite vocal in their communication, it’s the male green and golden bell frog that is most often heard calling. Males let out a long growl that lasts several seconds, followed by a series of short grunts such as “cr-a-a-aw-a-a-awk cra-a-a awk crok crok” and they do this while floating in water. These frogs tend to call more often following periods of rain.  

Active by day, the green and golden bell frog enjoys basking in the sunlight and breeds during the warmer summer months. Frogs lay eggs in small clusters in the water amongst aquatic vegetation and these take between two and five days to hatch after fertilisation. Tadpoles can measure up to 8cm in length with the process of metamorphosis taking around six weeks. 

Related: 20 Aussie frogs you need to know about

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With over 74 species of ticks within Australia, only a few of these are harmful to humans, with the Australian paralysis tick packing the mightiest of punches with its bite. 

This parasite is found on the east coast of Australia, from north Queensland down to southern Victoria. Thriving in humid conditions, the Australian paralysis tick makes its home within wet sclerophyll forests, in rainforests, gullies and regrowth areas and grassy spots near these habitats. In northern parts of Australia, this tick can be found all year round, but in the cooler southern parts, ticks are usually in season from Spring through to late Autumn. 

Just big enough to be seen by the naked eye when attached, the Australian paralysis tick is set apart from other common ticks by its menacing, long mouthpiece or ‘snout’ that has barbs along it, helping it to embed within its host.

Larvae have six legs with the first and last set darker than the others and nymphs and adults have eight legs like the rest of their arachnid relatives. With an oval or seed shaped body that is flat when empty, the legs are bunched up at the front near the mouthpiece and the body colour tends to change from whitish to grey to black depending on whether the parasite has fed or not. 

Although male Australian parasite ticks sometimes crawl onto people, they very rarely feed on humans or other vertebrate hosts thanks to underdeveloped mouthpieces. Preferring to steal a bloody snack from their engorged female counterparts, the male can leave behind scars where it has pierced the female’s body wall in the plight of dinner. It’s the female tick that is the ultimate blood sucker. Lying in wait on vegetation with outstretched arms waving slowly, the Australian paralysis tick will then attach to a potential ‘host’ and penetrate their skin quite painlessly, thanks to an in-built pain killer within the tick’s saliva. 

Bandicoots are among the more common mammal hosts, but the Australian paralysis tick has been known to embed itself onto birds, native mammals, reptiles, livestock, and domestic pets, as well as humans when the opportunity presents.     

Tiny larvae or grass ticks feed on three different hosts to complete their lifecycle and move on to moult and enter the nymph stage, where they measure in at around 1mm. Feeding until they are completely engorged takes between four and six days and during feeding, paralysis toxins are produced and passed on to the host but only females and mostly those that have fed for four days or more produce enough toxins to cause paralysis in mammals or birds. Some native marsupial animals show a resistance, with bandicoots highly resistant to this toxin. 

A bite from an adult Australian paralysis tick can cause itchiness and a hard lump at the site of the bite. For some unlucky victims, other immune responses can also occur, including allergic reactions such as weak limbs, flu like symptoms, partial face paralysis and even anaphylactic shock.

Related: Ticks: poisonous hitchhikers

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There are three subspecies of dugite. The mainland subspecies is the common dugite (Pseudonaja affinis affinis), with two smaller island subspecies being the Rottnest Island dugite (Pseudonaja affinis exilis) and the Recherche Archipelago dugite (P. a. tanneri). All belong to the brown snake family, are similar in appearance, and can grow up to two metres in length. 

All three subspecies have long, slender bodies and range in colour from brown to olive brown to brownish grey. The mainland subspecies have dark grey to black spotting with eastern and southern reptiles usually more heavily spotted, so much so that they sometimes become totally dark. With a pale yellow or olive belly, the dugite has a small head compared to its neck and it blends gradually into the body which is a distinguishable feature of this brown snake. 

The dugite makes its home in southern Western Australia and western coastal South Australia. This brown snake can also be found on several offshore islands including Boxer Island and the Figure Eight Island in the Recherche Archipelago as well as Rottnest Island. 

Dugites live in a wide range of habitats including coastal dunes, heathlands, scrublands, and woodlands, but tend to prefer sandy areas. More urban spaces that have been degraded also make an attractive habitat for these shy reptiles, with golf courses, industrial parks and agricultural country among areas listed as potential home environments. The dugite has become more common in populated areas especially around Perth, with access to a ready food source in the form of the house mouse a drawcard for this diurnal reptile. 

Dugites will find shelter under a range of materials including industrial rubbish and building supplies such as concrete and roof materials, but prefer rocks, abandoned rabbit and rodent burrows as well as empty termite nests in the natural world. If you stumble across one of these snakes, they are usually shy in temperament and will often slither away however, if they feel cornered or under threat, they will defend themselves. 

Active during the day, the dugite usually takes advantage of the morning hours to actively search for prey, and sometimes during the afternoon. Hunting frogs, lizards, snakes, birds, and small mammals that may be hiding in holes, crevices, in grasses and under debris, the dugite is also known to be cannibalistic and can swallow a snake almost as large as itself. 

Laying eggs from late spring to mid-summer, the mainland dugite produces an average clutch size of 21 eggs. Temperature dependant, eggs take between 53 and 105 days to hatch.

Considered highly dangerous to humans, just one drop of venom from this Western Australian native snake can clot the blood and kill within hours. Although naturally shy, the dugite can become easily agitated if confronted and is responsible for around 70% of snake bites reporting to Perth hospitals, although prompt medical attention and antivenom has prevented deaths, with only one recorded fatality. 

Related: Australia’s dangerous animals: the top 30

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This sea lion is one of the rare two body form species of mammal (sexually dimorphic) with the adult male being up to twice the length and weight of the female adult. They share similar body structures, yet the male and female sea lion have entirely different coat colour, adding to the interesting nature of this species. 

With a blunt snout and small, tightly rolled external ears, the Australian seal lion male is dark blackish to chocolate brown in colour with a whitish crown of the head and nape. The female sea lion has a more silvery-grey topcoat of fur and yellow to cream coloured fur below. Pups are covered in a chocolate brown fur which they eventually lose after their first moulting stage.    

The only seals endemic to Australia, the Australian sea lion breeds on at least 50 different islands off the coast of Western Australia and South Australia. The species has also been recorded off the mainland at Shark Bay, WA, along the New South Wales coast, southern Tasmania, and Victoria. With limited numbers of these animals recorded across population sites, the Australian sea lion is considered rare and under threat. Forty-two per cent of the total known population exist at the three largest colonies and these can all be found east of Port Lincoln in South Australia. 

Related: Secrets of the Australian sea lion revealed

Happily living in a vast range of habitats that serve several different purposes for the animal throughout its life cycle, the Australian sea lion moves around depending on whether it is breeding or non-breeding season or if in need of a haul-out site, where the animal can rest whilst safe from predators. These environments include exposed islands, reefs, rocky terrain, sandy beaches, and vegetated fore dunes, with caves and deep cliff overhangs also frequented by the animal.

Once hunted for their fur, the status of the Australian sea lion was amended from vulnerable to endangered in 2021 under Australian Law, due to a dramatic decrease in the population numbers over the past four decades. Feeding along the continental shelf, mostly at depts between 20 and 100 metres, the Australian sea lion hunts along the sea floor, dining on octopus, small rays, cuttlefish, sharks, and rock lobsters.   

The Australian sea lion is considered unique among the family of pinnipeds (seals, sea lions and walruses) because it has a non-annual breeding cycle and the different colonies of sea lions across Australia also don’t breed at the same time, but anytime between January to June. They also take out the record for the longest gestation period of 14 months, have a long period of around 17 months where mother’s nurse their single pup and females also tend to only breed at the site where they were born. Species mortality is high with only 30% of pups born in any breeding season surviving to maturity because of factors including environmental pressures, attacks by males, disease, and illness. 

Communicating through a series of growls, clicks, and barks, the male Australian sea lion uses this vocalisation throughout the breeding season to assert dominance. Female Australia sea lions and pups within the species also rely on similar noises as well as scent to recognise each other after the mother returns from hunting trips. 

Commercial fishery gillnets currently pose the greatest risk to Australian sea lions, as they become snagged in the thin mesh and drown. Water pollution has also had a negative effect on the species population along with disease and illness.  

Related: The 6 seals and sea lions that (sometimes) call Australia home

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The Australian fur seal is closely related to the South African fur seal, yet different to other regular or true seals, thanks to its external ears and its ability to use all four of its limbs to move easily across the land. 

Found in coastal waters and oceans, the Australian fur seal prefers rocky island habitats, pebble and rock-covered beaches and rocky ledges for breeding and resting. Found mostly around islands off the Bass Strait, southern Victoria and parts of Tasmania, this seal species has also been noted on islands off southern New South Wales and South Australia. 

When it comes to dinnertime, the Australian fur seal relies on its extensive bag of hunting tricks and its keen eyesight and other senses to find a meal. Eating mostly fish, squid and octopus, the Australian fur seal has been known to occasionally dine on seabirds and typically doesn’t dive deeper than 150 metres, foraging in the oceanic waters off the continental shelf.

Conflict between commercial fisherman and Australian fur seals, whom both compete for similarly-sized fish, has been problematic in the past. Even though culling seals is no longer deemed a suitable solution, the issue of seal bycatch in fisheries which target the Australian fur seal’s preferred food source is ongoing. 

With movement and interaction between the species at its peak during the summer breeding months, seal pups are born between late October and late December. Australian fur seal pups drink thick, rich milk from their mother and are weaned 10 to 11 months after birth, but some Australian fur seal females or cows may suckle their young for up to four years. After the birth of her first pup, the fur seal cow enters a cycle of pregnancy and lactation that lasts for the rest of her life, with usually just a few weeks off between weaning the last season’s pup and giving birth to her next, single young. 

Nature has a tricky way of ensuring that the Australian fur seal always gives birth within the summer months. Delayed implantation takes place within Australian fur seal cows, where the fertilised egg remains dormant for a period before implanting and beginning development into a live young. This unique adaption gives pups the best chance of surviving after birth, thanks to the warmer weather and readily available food supply. 

The life of an Australian fur seal is not without threats. Predators include a number of shark species, killer whales, and humans, with seals regularly succumbing to the dangers of commercial fishing or entanglement with fishing gear and death by swallowing plastic bags or garbage.    

Related: The 6 seals and sea lions that (sometimes) call Australia home

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All 13 dorsal fin spines, one pelvic fin spine and three anal fin spines are toxic. Used only in self-defence, contact with the venomous spines are not fatal to humans, but can pack a mighty punch with post-sting reactions including high temperature, vomiting, dizziness and difficulty breathing. Venom from the common lionfish is protein-based, so it can be rendered inactive by applying heat or freezing, and first aid advice suggests pouring non-scalding, hot water on the sting sight immediately. 

A tropical species, the common lionfish is found throughout the Indo-Pacific oceans. In Australia, they are known to inhabit the waters from south-western WA, around the tropical north of the country and down to the southern coast of NSW. With few natural predators, it is now recognised as a pest in the Western Atlantic, having a devastating effect on reef fish and coral populations thanks to its perpetual appetite. 

An active predator that stalks its prey with its pectoral fins outstretched, the common lionfish can be aggressive. When disturbed by divers, the fish has been reported to stand its ground, instead of retreating, pointing its dorsal fin spines towards the intruder. 

Using its colourful pattern markings and long fins to blend into its coral background, the lionfish has a swim bladder, helping it to stay buoyant whilst in the water. 

A ‘wait and strike’ nocturnal animal, the lionfish hides amongst coral and waits for a meal to swim past, before lunging out and eating it. The lionfish devours crustaceans and just about any fish it can catch and has a substantial appetite to replenish the large amount of energy it spends pursuing its prey.   

Related: Top 10: Dangerous marine creatures that aren’t so well known

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There are seven species of Australian tarantula from four genera, Selenocosmia, Selenotholus, Selenotypus and Phlogiellus, within the country. The seven species are the Queensland whistling spider (Selenocosmia crassipes), barking spider (Selenocosmia stirlingi), brush tarantula (Coremiocnemis tropix), Selenocosmia Strenua, Selenocosmia Subvulpina, Selenotholus Foelschei, and Selenotypus Plumipes.

The spiders vary greatly in size and leg span, ranging from 5 to 16cm. With many still undescribed species, identification can be tricky, but broadly tarantulas have a large, heavy body, ranging in colour from dark brown to reddish brown or pale fawn, with a silvery sheen. Tarantulas have large fangs that measure in at around 1 cm in length.  

The genus Selenocosmia can be found in New South Wales, Queensland, South and Western Australia, with Selenocosmia stirlingi the most widely distributed species which can also be found in north-western Victoria. Other species can be found in Queensland and the Northern Territory with these spiders living in a range of habitats including rainforest and desert areas and everything in between, excluding southern coastal areas or the northern tropics. 

Australian tarantulas live in silk or web lined burrows that are permanent abodes and act as a safe place for the female spider to hide her egg sac. Ranging from between 40 and 100cm deep, these burrows maintain a consistent temperature of approximately 20 degrees celsius and are sometimes plugged during the coldest and hottest times of the year. Females can live for up to 12 years and spend most of their lifetime within the burrow. 

Australian tarantulas are carnivores and eat insects, lizards, frogs, and other spiders. These spiders are non-aggressive and although they have quite large fangs which can penetrate a human’s skin, their bite is not deadly. Although not linked to human fatalities, reactions from a tarantula’s toxic venom can include nausea, severe pain at the site of puncture and profuse sweating.  Despite being sometimes referred to as bird-eating spiders, it is rare for a tarantula to eat a bird, but small chicks may occasionally be taken from nests on the ground if the opportunity presents. 

During breeding season in spring or early summer, the male tarantula entices the female out of her burrow to mate at the entrance. The male tarantula dies shortly after mating, usually at around five years of age. About 50 eggs are laid by the female into a 30mm sac that is protected by a layer of tough silk and stored safely in her burrow. After an incubation time of 6-9 weeks, spiderlings will moult once inside the egg sac before making their way into the world through a single hole. Moulting for a second time, the baby spiders will then leave the mother’s nest to fend for themselves.   

Some tarantulas are known as whistling or barking spiders thanks to the unique sounds they make, usually as a defensive mechanism. Tarantulas can make a whistling sound by rubbing their palps (limb-like mating organs between the front legs) along a set of spines at the base of their fangs, with a different species able to create a barking noise that mimics a dog, and both noises are used in an attempt to deter predators.       

Related: Australian spiders: the 10 most dangerous

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A recent scientist discovery in 2008 revealed that instead of one species of manta ray, there are in fact two in existence – the reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) and the giant oceanic manta ray (Mobula birostris). Differing in size, dentition, and spine morphology, they also vary in preferred habitat, with the reef manta inhabiting the coastal fringes of the Indo-Pacific, and the giant oceanic manta spending its life in open waters around the world, mostly far from land.

With a large, flat, diamond-shaped body that can grow up to seven metres wide, the gigantic oceanic manta ray usually measures in at between four and four and a half metres between the tip of each of its wings. Reef manta rays are smaller at around three metres in width. With fingerprint-like identification in the form of unique spots on the underside of its belly, the manta ray has triangular, horn-like pectoral fins stemming from the front of its head, earning it the nickname “devil fish”.   

Imposing in size, but without a stinging barb and with a narrow row of minute teeth, the manta ray is a true gentle giant of the sea. Both manta ray species are filter feeders that cruise the ocean with their mouths open, filtering zooplankton and krill through the rows of tiny rakes that line their mouths called gill plates. To satisfy their appetite, manta rays will use a range of different techniques including ‘ram-feeding’ (when a manta swims against the current with an open mouth), near-bottom feeding, looping, and cyclone feeding (where mantas follow each other in a circle with mouths open, creating a cyclone effect that traps food in a spiral). During feeding, manta rays can be seen en masse and this impressive collection of large fish is called a squadron.

When it comes to cold-blooded fish, the mantra ray is considered one of the most intelligent. With the largest brain to body size ratio of any living fish, studies reveal that the manta ray may recognise themselves in a mirror, indicating high cognitive function. Manta rays can also create mental maps of their environment through visual cues and smell, hinting at advanced long-term memory.

Although they have few natural predators (the biggest being the killer whale and large sharks), female manta rays have a low fecundity, giving birth to one pup every two-three years and only reaching sexual maturity by the age of between eight and 10 years. When the female is ready to breed, a unique ‘courtship train’ begins, with the female followed by several males that mimic her every move. Lasting for several days, the female will test her potential suitors by disrupting the train and checking which male is best at getting back into formation. After a 12month gestation, a live pup is born, wrapped safely like a burrito and can immediately survive without the care of their mother.

Related: Giant manta rays are deep-sea predators, study finds

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With a bill and webbed feet like a duck, a flat tail like a beaver (where it stores fat reserves) and the furry body of an otter, the platypus is well suited to semi-aquatic life. And if this rare amalgamation of animal parts isn’t enough to impress the toughest animal enthusiast amongst us, the fact that the male platypus is also listed as one of the world’s few venomous mammals, just might. 

Platypuses make their home in freshwater rivers, wetlands, and billabongs across Australia. Their habitats range from the tropical rainforest lowlands and plateaus of Far North Queensland to the cold, high altitudes of the Australian Alps and as far south as Tasmania. An ideal home for the platypus is a river or stream with earth banks and botanical vegetation that provides shade and cover near the edges of the waterway.   

Hunting for food, the platypus closes its eyes and ears and relies on its amazing duck-like bill, a supersonic organ that is completely covered in sensors. The platypus uses these specialised nerve endings called electroreceptors, to find its prey, as they can detect any tiny electrical current that is generated by the muscle contractions of an animal or insect. Shellfish, worms, and other insects are top of the menu, with the platypus able to close the watertight seals on its nostrils so it can stay underwater for up to two minutes while hunting. Without teeth, the platypus is a bottom feeder and must store its catch in its cheek pouches, before returning to the surface to smash up its meal before finally swallowing it.  

Although some describe the platypus as cute, the male platypus is in fact armed with sharp, calcaneus stingers on the heels of its hind feet. These spurs are connected via a long duct to a venom-producing gland. Although the venom is not lethal to humans, the spike and subsequent contact of platypus venom has been described as excruciatingly painful to people, with localised swelling the main side effect.      

During breeding season, the female platypus lays between one and three eggs in an underground burrow that she digs near the water’s edge, following a 21-day period of gestation. Platypus infants hatch after ten days of incubation where the mother holds her eggs pressed by her tail to her belly, while curled up. Once born, the mother spends most of her time in her burrow with her young and feeds them milk for up to four months before they are independent and able to survive on their own. 

Not well-suited to getting around on land, the platypus uses around 30 per cent more energy whilst walking in comparison to a terrestrial mammal of similar size. Even though they are awkward above ground, the webbing on their feet retracts to reveal individual nails which help the creature to run and dig. When it comes to the water, the platypus is in its element, smoothly gliding through the water, with only three small humps visible from above (the head, the back and the tail). Spending around 12 hours under water every day looking for food, the platypus is equipped with two layers of fur. The creature traps a layer of air next to their skin and this allows them to keep dry and buoyant when below the surface. 

Related: That’s not a baby platypus, this is a baby platypus

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More closely related to the nightjar than the owl, the tawny frogmouth is mottled grey, white, black, and rufous, allowing them to easily become camouflaged with the bark of a tree.

Like owls, their feathers are soft which helps them fly silently through the air, but they lack the strong, curved talons that owls are renown for.

Beard-like bristles around their beak may look like whiskers, but they help detect movement of flying insects and offer a level of protection to the bird’s face. Their name stems from its large and wide beak which resembles a frogmouth when opened.

Found throughout mainland Australia and Tasmania, the tawny frogmouth makes its home in almost any habitat (except denser rainforests and arid desserts). Preferring open woodlands, the birds can also be spotted in parks and suburban gardens, alpine woodlands, and rainforest margins.   

Nocturnal, the tawny frogmouth becomes like a statue during the day, effortlessly taking on the appearance of a dead tree branch while sleeping. Dusk is when these birds spring to life and can be seen bobbing their head and flying around to catch their prey during flight. They can also carefully and motionlessly watch from above in the tree canopy before swooping down to pounce on an unsuspecting meal. Primarily insectivores, the tawny frogmouth diet consists mostly of slugs, snails, worms, spiders, and centipedes, yet occasionally they eat larger prey such as small mammals, frogs, reptiles, and even small birds.    

Quite the romantics, tawny frogmouths mate for life and often stay within the same territory with their breeding pair for more than ten years or their entire lifetime. Breeding season occurs between August and December when females lay two to three eggs in a nest made of sticks and leaves within the tree branches. Taking turns to incubate the eggs overnight, it’s the male who also works the daytime shift, tasked with keeping the eggs warm and safe.

Once tawny chicks hatch, these fluff balls practice their camouflage postures under the watchful gaze of their parents and the bird family can often be seen all sitting together on one branch. Their call is a soft and low “oom-omm-omm-omm” sound but tawnys can also make a loud hissing noise if threatened. 

Related: Tawny frogmouths: 5 things you may not know about these masters of disguise

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Once driven to extinction on mainland Australia, the greater stick-nest rat has a small population on the Franklin Islands in South Australia and conservationists are working hard to re-introduce the species back to other parts of the mainland in the hope of saving this fluffy creature from extinction.

Also known as wopilkara, this native rodent is yellowy brown to grey with a creamy underbelly, a large head with large eyes, a blunt snout, and rounded ears. With a long, dark brown tail that is light brown on its underside, the greater stick-nest rat has special white markings on its upper feet and rests in a hunched position that’s similar to the stance of a rabbit. 

Before European colonisation, the greater stick-nest rat could be found in arcs along the south-eastern, southern and south-western boundaries of Australia’s arid zone, from western Victoria to Northwest Cape. By the 1850s, the species was incredibly rare and could only be found in areas that hadn’t been turned into grazing land and by the 1930s, the greater stick-nest rat had become extinct on mainland Australia. 

With its only natural population living on South Australia’s Franklin Islands, a captive breeding program began in 1985 using a selection of these animals in the hope of boosting animal numbers and one day reintroducing this guinea pig sized rodent back to the country’s mainland states as well as other Australian Islands. Current population numbers of stick-nest rats indicate reintroduction success at several specific sites, which spells good news for the future of the species. 

A ground-dwelling animal, the greater stick-nest rat prefers semi-arid to arid perennial shrubland, especially consisting of succulent and semi succulent plant species. Rodents can survive with little to no access to fresh water and they feed on the leaves and fruits of succulent plants and grasses. 

The greater stick-nest rat are master builders, constructing extraordinary nests out of sticks, branches, and stones which they build on top of soft grass. Teams of between 10 and 20 rats work together to collect, pile and weave materials to create an elaborate nest with a central living area and numerous tunnels extending to the outside. Running repairs are constantly made to the structure by the community of rats, with nests sometimes reaching as tall as 1 metre high and 1.5metres wide and lasting for generations. Rats may also find shelter in rock crevices, birds nesting burrows and dense shrubland. 

Strong bonds are established between breeding pairs as the animals look to reproduce during autumn and winter when food and water is plentiful. Female stick-nest rats give birth to between one and three young after a gestation time of 44 days. Young rats attach themselves to the mother’s teat and are dragged around on the animal’s daily duties until they wean at around one month of age.    

Related: Stick-nest rats are masters of construction

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A literal living relic of the past, the estuarine crocodile first appeared over 240million years ago during the time of the dinosaurs. While many species evolved into different shapes and forms, the crocodile has remained relatively stable in structure for the last 200 million years. With its long, toothed snout, eyes and nostrils set on top of its head, extremely thick skin covered in bony plates called osteoderms, long muscular tail and short limbs with clawed webbed feet, the estuarine crocodile is built perfectly for a range of watery habitats and is a top predator within its environment. 

Rivers, estuaries, creeks, swamps, lagoons, and billabongs make the perfect home for the saltwater croc. These adaptable reptiles can tolerate water salinities from 0% (freshwater) to 35% in full strength sea water and some crocodiles have also been recorded in water twice as saline (70%) as sea water.  

Found from India, across Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, within Australia, the estuarine crocodile inhabits waterways from Rockhampton in Queensland, throughout coastal Northern Territory and across to King Sound, near Broome in Western Australia. 

Born with a strong set of hunting skills, juvenile estuarine crocodiles can easily catch a meal as soon as they hatch from their egg, with small insects, crabs, prawns, and shrimp amongst their favourite snacks. Opportunistic feeders, the estuarine crocodile uses either a ‘sit and wait’ strategy or ‘active hunting’ to catch their next meal. Happy to feast upon any animal that crosses its path, smaller saltwater crocs mostly eat insects and crustaceans, with larger beasts feeding less on larger prey including water birds, snakes, sea turtles, and mammals up to the size of a water buffalo. 

Larger crocodiles actively hunt their prey and use ambush as a successful tactic to capture animals unaware of the crocodile’s presence. If the estuarine crocodile cannot swallow their meal whole, the reptile may drag it under water and twist it into a “death roll” until it dies, or the croc might violently shake its head in an attempt to break its prey apart.  

Estuarine crocodiles enter a courtship period four to six weeks before nesting and this behaviour can last throughout the nesting period, with usually takes place during the build-up to the wet season in northern Australia. Males become extremely territorial, with head-slapping, growling and even animal to animal combat – all techniques used to drive away competing males. Females also assert their dominance and eventually approach the male, and an elaborate process of swimming together, body contact and rubbing takes place. 

Creating a mound nest using piles of vegetation mixed with earth in a location close to a permanent water source, the female then digs an egg chamber and lays an average of 50 hard shell eggs. Protecting the eggs during the two-to-three-month incubation period, the mother crocodile helps to dig out her hatchlings and carries them in her mouth down to the water. A variety of factors including infertility, flooding, and overheating means 75% of saltwater crocodile eggs wont hatch at all and from those that do, many fall prey to birds, turtles, large fish and other crocodiles. 

Surviving estuarine crocs that make it to adulthood have very few predators besides larger crocodiles and humans. Now protected, saltwater crocodiles have steadily increased in number since the 1970s but deaths due to fishing nets and the effects of habitat destruction are still apparent. 

Related: Learning to live with a carnivore

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There are three copperhead snake species found within Australia: the pygmy (Austrelaps labialis), the highlands (Austrelaps ramsayi), and the lowlands (Austrelaps superbus) copperhead, all with varying coppery-brown colouration on their heads hence their name.

The three species are similar in form, with a muscley, strong body and they all share semi-gloss and uniform blackish to grey, brown scales on their back and upper sides of their bodies. Some lowlands and highlands copperheads display a brownish or orange hue.    

Found in cool and cold climates, the copperhead snake makes its home in south-eastern parts of Australia including Kangaroo Island, Bass Strait Islands and Tasmania.

The pygmy is found only in the Lofty Ranges in South Australia within high altitude forests and on Kangaroo Island in coastal dunes, open grasslands, woodlands and in agricultural areas.

The highlands copperhead resides in the highlands of NSW and eastern Victoria, near water in woodlands and open forests.

And the lowlands copperhead lives in lowland areas of south-eastern South Australia, southern Victoria, Tasmania, and the islands of the Bass Strait, in grasslands, heathlands, woodlands and open scrub.

Active during the night or diurnal, copperhead snakes are often energetic in cool water and love to be close to swamps, marshes, lakes, creeks, streams, and rivers.

Although they are characterised as elapid, with short hollow fangs at the front of their upper jaw, copperhead snakes are largely inoffensive and feed almost exclusively on lizards and frogs, occasionally eating other small snakes or reptile eggs if the opportunity presents.   

The skink is the top of the copperhead menu but like some other venomous species of snake, cannibalism has been known to take place within the species. Far from fussy, if hunger strikes and the occasion presents, copperheads have been known to eat other small snakes and even each other.

Moving mostly along the ground, copperhead snakes can climb if they need to. All three species produce an average of 15 live young (ovoviviparous) per litter, with male copperheads engaging in a type of combat at the start of the breeding season, keeping their heads apart but entwining their bodies. Newborn copperhead snakes have the same fully functional fangs as an adult and can inject venom that is just as toxic.

Although venomous, copperhead snakes are recorded as secretive, shy animals that prefer to avoid human encounters. With a venom that contains both post and pre-synaptic neurotoxins, and is also haemolytic and cytotoxic, these snakes won’t bite unless provoked, but an injury can cause death without medical intervention.   

Related: Australia’s 10 most dangerous snakes

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Dutch settler Willem de Vlamingh first spotted this small, grey-brown fur covered creature on the island, describing it as a type of giant rat. He went on to name the land mass Rottenest (‘rat nest’) after his sighting, with the now known Rottnest Island famous for this curious and cute critter.

With thick, coarse fur, the quokka has a brown face with short, rounded ears and a naked snout. The quokka has a relatively short, hairless tail that tapers towards the end, with males growing larger than females.

Before European settlement, the quokka was found in abundance across the southwest of WA, including its offshore islands, but mainland populations were drastically reduced after the introduction of the red fox in the 1930s. Fragmented populations of this small wallaby can now be found on the mainland just south of Perth to the Hunter River, but larger populations are found on Rottnest Island (near Perth) and Bald Island (near Albany).    

With the ability to climb trees, the quokka is described as a habitat specialist – preferring to inhabit areas that have been burned in the last ten years. On the mainland, quokkas can be found in dense riparian or swamp vegetation thanks to the animal’s relatively high-water requirement but can also be found in shrubland and heath areas. Rottnest Island’s semi-arid areas are favoured by the quokka, and the Island’s Limestone heath, woodland, wetland, and settlement areas support the largest known population of this wallaby in the world.

With a green diet, this browsing herbivore only eats plants and enjoys munching on tree and shrub buds, leaves, grasses, succulents, seeds, and roots. Mainly nocturnal, the quokka kicks back during much of the day, sleeping or resting in the shade or retreating to an area of dense vegetation to avoid predators. Known to create paths and trails through the undergrowth, the quokka is most active at night where it feeds alone or in a small group.  

Quokkas have a short breeding season on Rottnest Island in late summer and one joey is usually born around February to April after just 27 days gestation. Staying close to mum in the pouch until August or September, the baby quokka continues to suckle for another two months and will return to the pouch periodically if cold or alarmed. Reaching sexual maturity at 18months of age, the quokka can live for up to ten years in the wild. interestingly, on the mainland, female quokkas can produce around 17 offspring during their lifetime, with two joeys being born per year.

This tiny wallaby tends to hop along the ground but also bounds and can climb trees to reach their food supply. The quokka is listed as vulnerable, with threats including dingoes, the red fox, and the destruction of habitat all reasons for a decline in population.       

Related: Quokkas: why we need to look beyond the smile

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Friendly and funny at times, male and female galahs are both pink with pale grey backs and wings with a paler pink crown of feathers on their head. The only difference between the two is that males have brown eyes and females have red. There are three sub-species of the galah, the eastern, northern, and western, all with slight variations in the colour of their plumage.

Living in most parts of Australia, except in heavily dense rainforest areas, the galah can also be found in Tasmania and was thought to have migrated over the Bass Strait under its own wing. A common sight in most backyards, the galah inhabits most areas within the country including open woodlands, parks, roadsides, fields, and farmlands and has benefited from land clearing for stock that came with European settlement.  

When food is abundant, galahs can be found in huge quantities, with noisy flocks of between 500 and one thousand birds not uncommon. Enjoying a diet of seeds, as well as fruit, berries, roots, and grubs, these birds will feed mostly from the ground and then retreat into the protection and shade of the tree canopy during the hottest part of the day.

Preferring to stick with one mating partner for life, galahs are monogamous and will only re-couple if their partner dies but otherwise spend most of their time with their pair, feeding, cleaning, and playing. The male galah makes himself heard during breeding season, chirping, and screeching to get the attention of its spouse. In a nest lined with gum leaves usually in a tree hollow, the female will lay between two and six eggs, with both the male and female taking turns to incubate the eggs over the next 30 days. Once hatched, the parents continue to share the duty of feeding their young and at the age of eight weeks, the chicks will leave the nest and enter a type of bird-day care system for up to two months, with the juvenile birds of other breeding pairs. Unfortunately, up to 50% of galah young die before six months of age.

Extremely vocal in the bird world, the galah makes a type of ‘chet’ sound when it is flying, and this is known as a contact call. Galahs make this same sound but repeated over and over and more quickly if they are alarmed or distressed but will also make a loud screeching sound with its tail fanned, wings out and comb erect, if it feels threatened or in defence if attacked.

Spending time feeding on the ground makes the galah vulnerable to predators including foxes, but otherwise they are a hardy and resilient bird. Able to withstand hot, arid conditions and searing temperatures, the galah can go without water for long periods of time and can rehydrate by drinking salty water if it must.

Related: How to attract your favourite birds to your garden

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Making its home in a broad range of habitats, this dolphin lives in coastal areas and bays but can also be found far out to sea, either just off or quite close to a continental shelf edge. Existing worldwide, the bottlenose dolphin is found right around the coast of Australia.

Their short, rounded snout (that is often described as bottle-shaped) and their slightly hooked dorsal fin combined with a sleek, streamlined, fusiform body create a species well suited for ‘acrobatics.’ This dolphin can launch itself up to five metres out of the water in an impressive flip or breach, before crashing back down with a splash. Scientists aren’t 100% sure why bottlenose dolphins engage in this leaping behaviour but speculate that it may be a way of cleaning parasites off their bodies, getting a better view of the horizon, to communicate with their pod or just for fun!

There are two recognised types of bottlenose dolphin, the ‘inshore’ form and the ‘offshore’ form which could possibly be different species. With slight physical variations, both types are commonly seen in pods, swimming with between two or three other dolphins, to up to one thousand.

Highly social, the bottlenose dolphin often works together in teams to find food and then feed together on a range of organisms including bottom-dwelling fish, invertebrates, squid, and a range of pelagic fish species. These dolphins use a technique known as echolocation to navigate and find food sources, where they send ultrasounds in the form of high-pitched clicks through the water that bounce back to the dolphin as echo’s and can be decoded in the animal’s melon or head just like a sonar. 

Agile and swift, the bottlenose dolphin can dive as deep as 250 metres below the water surface and reach speeds of up to 30km per hour as they glide through the ocean. These mammals are true water babies but must still come to the surface to breathe air. Holding their breath under the water for up to seven minutes, the bottlenose dolphin must then open its blowhole above the water to inhale and exhale and can cleverly close this opening in the top of their head once under water again.

Dolphin calves are born in the water and like all mammals, drink milk from their mother for 18 months, and remain with her for around four years.  Highly social animals, an additional dolphin usually helps the mother to take care of the calf in a role similar to that of a midwife.

Related: Unlocking the secrets to dolphins’ risky feeding habits

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Reaching up to 6.5cm long, this tree frog is considered a large amphibian, with a bright green back and yellow belly. Most of the red-eyed tree frog’s limbs are yellow, with only the upper forearms and tibia the same vibrant green as the frog’s body. The litoria chloris is characterised by the distinct deep purple to brown of its thighs and bright red-orange iris that has a black horizontal pupil.

The red-eyed tree frog makes its home within tropical lowland and montane forest with continual forest cover and access to water in the form of rivers or ponds a must for their continual reproductive success. These frogs have also been recorded in areas of flooded grasslands, and in re-growth areas. Within Australia, the red-eyed tree frog is found from as high as Mackay in Queensland, and down along the coastal areas towards Gosford in NSW.  

A nocturnal species, these bright green amphibians spend much of their time high in the tree foliage and are seen less often than their close relative, the green tree frog, Litoria caerulea. Although it might be hard to steal a glimpse of the red-eyed green tree frog, the amphibian makes itself known thanks to its distinct call. Males communicate from deep within the vegetation near ponds, dams, or streams with a long series of moaning sounds followed by a soft trill, often in a deafening chorus.       

Breeding happens after heavy rain during summer and spring time, and this is when the male frog really warms up its vocal cords and sings to a potential mate, using a series of long “aaaa-rks” ending with a chirp. Mating takes place in shallow pools of water, with the female frog known to lay up to five clutches of up to 500 eggs per breeding season. Light brown tadpoles tend to stay at the bottom of water bodies until they reach metamorphosis and develop into a frog after around 41 days.   

Surviving on a diet of small insects and moths, the skin glands of the red-eyed green tree frog contain a variety of peptides or small proteins called caerins. Of great interest to scientists and the medical research world, at least four of these caerins contain anti-bacterial properties and have been used in medical trails to combat infections, regulate heartrate function and even fight cancer.

Related: 20 Aussie frogs you need to know about

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Often wrongly referred to as a bear, koalas have a stocky body, with no tail, and are covered in a thick ash-grey fur with white underbelly. A large round head, fluffy ears, and a distinctive black leathery rectangle-shaped nose, make this animal unmistakably unique.

Found in patches across Australia, numbers are in decline due to land clearing and habitat loss, but koalas can still be found along the east coast of Australia from northern Queensland to southern Victoria as well as south-eastern South Australia. Depending on their location, koalas vary in size and colour. Animals living in the southern parts of Australia are usually larger in size with thicker fur than their northern cousins, which may be a possible adaption to combat the cooler weather. Male koalas are also generally up to 50 per cent bigger than females.

Feeding exclusively on leaves from certain varieties of eucalyptus trees, this diet is relatively low in nutrients which gives the koala little energy to spare. The fibrous nature of eucalyptus leaves also makes them tricky to digest, but the koala has a long caecum which is part of the intestine, to help pass things through. An adult koala can munch on between 500grams to 1kg of leaves each night and relies on supplies from a series of ‘home trees’ within its range which overlap with those belonging to other koalas.

This fluffy tree-dwelling marsupial has a slow metabolism aimed at conserving energy and spends up to 20 hours a day sleeping. Koalas are classified as nocturnal, but they still sleep for part of the night and sometimes move about in the daylight hours.

Territorial and solitary animals, koalas use several sounds, including growling, belching, and bellowing to communicate with each other. Adult males have scent glands on their chest which they rub on trees to mark out their territory. Koalas mate in spring through to early autumn and a tiny joey is born 35 days after successful coupling. Completely reliant on its mother, a joey is born around 2cm long or the size of a jellybean and uses its keen sense of smell and touch to climb independently to its mother’s teat. After feeding and growing for 13 weeks, the koala joey still won’t look around and open its eyes until it is 22 weeks old.

Once the juvenile koala is weaned from milk, it feeds on an unusual soft liquid faeces called pap, from its mother. This substance is thought to introduce the right bacteria to the joey which is necessary for digesting gum leaves. After a full six months in the pouch, the joey then hitches a ride on mum’s back or abdomen but still returns to the pouch to drink milk until it grows too big to fit! Eventually leaving the shared home range and mother between one and three years of age, the koala needs to find its own specific home range of trees which is either a new area of the forest or a space left vacant by a dead koala.

Tree conservation is extremely important to the ongoing survival of the koala, with every forest having its own ‘carrying capacity’ – the amount of available gumtrees within any forest can only feed a certain number of this species, making the protection of potential koala habitat extremely important to the future of this fluffy Aussie icon.

Related: Unbearable loss: our koalas are endangered

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Endemic to Australia, the emu is a well-known fixture within most parts of the country and was one of the first species recorded by early European explorers, who gave it the name ‘Emu,’ derived from an Arabic word meaning ‘large bird’.

Hunted for food, celebrated in culture, and represented in traditional artworks and dance by Indigenous Australians for thousands of years, there is no specific, standard Indigenous word for emu, since there is no single, indigenous language. This native bird is also the subject of astrological mythology, most notably the emu constellation, and other creation stories for Aboriginal peoples.    

Reaching between 1.6 and 1.9 metres tall, the emu has small wings (just 20cm long) but long powerful legs with three forward-facing toes and no hind toe. The adult emu is covered in soft grey-brown feathers, except for its head and neck which are blueish black. Emu chicks are grey with stripes of black, brown, and cream, helping them to easily blend into the grassy bushland. 

It’s no huge surprise that another of Australia’s famous big birds, the Cassowary, is the closest living relative to the emu. The emu is lighter than its relation, but taller and less heavy-set. What may be less well-known is that three dwarf subspecies of the mainland emu once roamed Tasmania and King and Kangaroo Islands but were hunted to extinction once Europeans arrived within Australia.  

Found throughout most of Australia, roaming from coastal regions all the way to the high snowy mountains, the emu makes its home in sclerophyll forests and savannah woodlands. Nomadic, the emu will travel up to 25 kilometres per day in search of food or water and eat the parts of plants with the densest nutritional content such as seeds, fruit, flowers, and young shoots. They also eat insects and small invertebrates and interestingly also digest large pebbles and charcoal, which helps their gizzards grind up food.

Paternal care is high on the agenda for the emu, with the mother helping to build a nest, then laying five to 15 dark green eggs, and then dad steps in. The female emu leaves her eggs to breed again, leaving the male to forgo food and water for around 55 days while he incubates the eggs, losing up to eight kilos in the process. The father stays with the newly born chicks for a further six months, teaching them to find food and keeping them safe until they reach maturity at 20 months.

Often silent, the emu does make deep booming, guttural sounds during the breeding season and chicks can be heard softly whistling to their parent as they forage for food. With few natural predators except for the dingo and wedge tailed eagle, the emu is an important seed disperser like its Cassowary cousin and plays an important role in bush biodiversity.

Once culled in large numbers by farmers after being identified as a threat to wheat crops, the emu is now protected under federal law and has been re-introduced to Tasmania, where they had previously disappeared.  

Related: Egg of extinct dwarf island emu discovered

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With at least 10 different species of blue-ringed octopus in the world, the two best-known examples are the lesser (southern) blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena maculosa) and the greater blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata), both earning their name from the bright blue rings which appear like a pattern all over their body when they are alarmed. Quite simply, the lesser blue-ringed octopus has fewer rings, and the greater has more.

These tiny cephalopods are grey to beige or even yellow in colour when resting, and have large light brown patches, helping them to camouflage beautifully into their rocky surrounds. With their eight legs also marked with even brown patches, these marks become darker and iridescent blue rings start to pulsate within the maculae when the animal is agitated or distressed.

Found only in the temperate waters of southern Australia, the lesser (southern) blue-ringed octopus makes its home in reef flats and tidal pools, from southern Western Australia to eastern Victoria. The greater blue-ringed octopus can be found in tidal pools and shallow reefs from northern Australia to Japan, including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.

Incredibly secretive and antisocial, the blue-ringed octopus hunts and feeds on hermit crabs, other small crabs, and shrimp during the day. The octopus has two distinct types of venom that are secreted from separate glands – one is used against its prey and one against its predators. The blue-ringed octopus is a master of ambush, using camouflage and a clever ability to hide within empty shells or rock crevices to wait until their prey is within sight, then they pounce on their hard-shelled meal, trapping it with their arms and using their hard parrot-like beak to make a hole in the shell or exoskeleton. Their tailored venom designed especially for prey is then dribbled into the opening, paralysing their meal so they can devour the softer tissue within reach. Meanwhile, the inside of the animal is partially digested by the salivary juices, which the octopus then sucks out, leaving a clean and empty shell behind.

Blue-ringed octopus live a relatively short life, with both the male and female reaching sexual maturity before the age of one. After mating, the female lays between 50 and 100 eggs, guarding them under her arm until they hatch, some 50 days later. Tragically, the female then dies as she is unable to eat during the time that she protects her eggs, with the male also dying just after mating occurs.

The odds of being stung by a blue-ringed octopus are luckily relatively low, mainly because the animal is rarely encountered in the first place. Doing their best to avoid confrontation at all costs, this octopus will flatten its body and skilfully blend into its surrounds to go unnoticed and when humans have been stung, its because they have either provoked or accidently stumbled across one of these tiny marine dwellers.

Capable of injecting a neuromuscular venom that paralyses and can be fatal, there is no antivenom, so artificial respiration is the only hope for those unfortunate enough to happen upon these beautiful yet poisonous creatures.

Related: Australia’s dangerous animals: the top 30

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Belonging to the family Therdiidae, the redback is a close relation of the USA’s poisonous black widow spider, with other species of Latrodectus, or widow spiders, found across the world. It’s the female spider which gives the species its common name, with its famous red to orange stripe on the upper abdomen. Female redbacks are also the gender considered most dangerous, with male spiders only measuring in at about 3mm, with fangs too small to penetrate the skin. Males have a light brown body with white markings on the upper side of the body and a much paler, hourglass marking on the underside.

Found throughout Australia, these adaptable arachnids are particularly common in human-inhabited areas of the country. You may have stumbled across a redback in the shed, garage or under the house, and yes, the urban legend of finding a redback in the outside toilet is unfortunately more accurate than most would like to believe. Preferring dry and dark areas, redbacks can be found in logs, under rocks, or in crevices in the bush, with similarly sheltered outdoor areas including garden pots, rubbish-piles, and unused sandpit buckets and toys, included among the many redback habitats.

The redback spider uses its detailed web as a method for catching prey, which consists of tangled, dry silk, with vertical, sticky traplines running from the spider’s upper-retreat area to the ground. Eating mostly insects, redbacks will feed on larger animals such as king crickets, baby mice, and small lizards and snakes, if they become stuck in their web. Females readily steal stored food from other spider webs and redback hatchlings will also eat their siblings.   

In a brutal process of reproduction, the male redback spider occupies the female’s attention during mating by offering her his abdomen. The female inserts digestive juices into the male’s body, and during this breeding behaviour that is unique to the Latrodectus hasselti species, the female continues to ‘digest’ the male while he inserts a palp into the female. The female then lays three to eight egg sacks between September and May, each filled with around 300 eggs. Another tough reality of the redback life cycle takes place when most of the hatchlings are either eaten by their siblings or succumb to wasp parasitism, with only a few reaching maturity at around three to four months.

Most reported spider bites within Australia come from the redback, yet there have been no subsequent deaths for over 50 years, thanks to the introduction of an anti-venom. Redback spiders aren’t naturally aggressive and won’t bite unless their webs are disturbed, or they are accidentally picked up and sometimes give a non-venomous warning bite if threatened. Venom from a redback bite can cause a range of reactions from swelling and nausea to headaches and increase blood pressure, even still, anti-venom is usually only given to those who suffer serve illness from the bite.

Related: Hidden housemates: The redback spider

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Famous for its low, beautifully haunting songs that echo through the sea, the humpback is found in waters worldwide and migrates annually off the west and east coasts of Australia.

Easily recognised thanks to their long flippers that are almost one third the size of their entire body, this large baleen whale is grey to black in colour and has a distinct hump under the dorsal fin and knobbly protuberances on the head. White markings on the belly are individually patterned and act like a fingerprint, making each whale distinguishable by scientists and researchers. 

Even though humpback whales are found in all major oceans from sub-polar latitudes to the equator, there are four recognised populations of whales which don’t overlap or interact with one another. They are the North Pacific, the Atlantic, Southern Oceans, and the Indian Ocean groups.

All humpbacks gulp mouthfuls of microscopic plankton, tiny crustaceans, and other small schooling fish, using their baleen plates to filter the seawater from their prey. With their tremendous size, an adult humpback can eat up to 1360kg of food per day.

Living mostly in the open ocean, humpback whales migrate from colder summer waters where they feed, to warmer winter waters to breed and give birth. During this annual migration, whales tend to hover closer to the coast and have become a favourite with whale watchers, thanks to their entertaining behavioural displays. Humpbacks use their large tail fins, or flukes, as well as pectoral fins to slap and make impressive splashes in the ocean. They can also propel themselves nose-first out of the water, do peduncle throws, where they expose their entire rear torso and tail out of the water, twist, and then slam their lower half down onto the water’s surface. 

The song of the humpback is louder than most other whales, with adult males taking on the role of singer. With tunes lasting around 20 minutes and then being repeated, when the humpback projects these haunting melodies, it floats relatively motionless, with its head down. It is thought that these tunes are a way of humpbacks communicating with other whales and potentially attracting a mate.  Humpback calves are also able to whisper to their mothers.

Seasoned long distance travellers, the humpback makes some of the longest migrations of any whale, traveling thousands of kilometres in search of food and then the perfect warm water to breed and raise their calves. One calf is born after a gestation of 12 months and this baby humpback will stay with its mother, nursing for a year. Calves swim close by to their mothers, often touching flippers in a gesture of affection and will continue to grow for ten years.

Related: Humpback whales: five things you may not know

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With its stocky frame, short legs, and bear-like face, the bare-nosed wombat is amongst the world’s largest burrowing animals and although you’d probably never guess, they can run at an impressive 40kph if they must.

Also known as the common wombat, the bare-nosed wombat prefers cooler and better-watered parts of forest areas within southern and eastern Australia, including Tasmania and in mountainous areas as far north as the south of Queensland. Bare-nosed wombats are declining in numbers however, in western Victoria and South Australia. Wombats call a variety of habitats home, including rainforest, alpine grassland, woodland, eucalyptus forest and coastal areas and have even adapted to farmland in some regions, with wombat sightings recording the animal grazing alongside cattle and sheep.

With coarse thick hair, slightly rounded ears, and a large, naked nose, the bare-nosed wombat is a strong animal that is built close to the ground. The only living member of the genus Vombatus, the bare-nosed wombat is similar in appearance to two remaining wombat species, the southern and northern hairy-nosed wombats. Although a marsupial, the wombat isn’t like others in this class, having only two incisor teeth in its upper jaw.

Solitary and territorial by nature, the bare-nosed wombat establishes a specific territory in which it feeds and lives. A home ‘tunnel’ is dug and can shelter a wombat for its entire lifetime, unless it is moved on by another animal species, a farmer or if the tunnel is destroyed. These tunnel systems can range between two and 20metres in length, usually with side tunnels veining from the main passageway but with only one entrance. Although nocturnal, the bare-nosed wombat does wander and graze during the day in cooler weather, usually in the morning or late afternoon.

The bare-nosed wombat is the only marsupial in the world with continuously growing teeth. This usual trait allows the animal to maintain a strictly herbivorous diet of native grasses, sedges, snow tussocks and other plants, grazing for hours usually after leaving its burrow after the sun sets.

Reaching sexual maturity at two years of age, breeding for wombats can take place year-round. A single joey is born every two years, after a speedy gestation period of just 20-30 days. The baby wombat remains in the pouch between 6 and 10 months and nature has cleverly designed this marsupial pouch to have a rear opening to prevent dirt from getting in when the mother wombat is digging! Once the joey emerges, it still suckles from its mother until around 12-15months of age until completely independent.   

The toileting habits of the wombat have been the source of interest for many years, with the animal excreting between four and eight scat pieces at a time, with many pooing up to 100 cubes a day! But why the square shape? Scientists have revealed the sharp cube-like edges of wombat poo are caused by the shape of the wombat’s intestinal tract. This tract expands and contracts during digestion with wombat intestines measuring ten times the size of the wombat itself. Digestion takes four times as long as a human, with all nutrients and water extracted from the food and the result is wombat poo the shape of a cube.

Related: Wombat bums: there’s more than meets the eye

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A member of the crane family, the brolga is a large grey bird with a featherless red to orange patch on its head, grey crown, and a black dewlap (piece of skin) hanging underneath its chin. Sometimes confused with the sarus crane, it’s the legs that will set them apart. A sarus crane has reddish-pink legs, while the brolga has dark grey.  

One of Australia’s largest flying birds, the brolga has a wingspan of between 1.7m and 2.4m wide and uses thermal currents to get elevation. At height, brolgas search for suitable habitat, which mostly consists of grassy plains, open wetlands, costal mudflats, and irrigated croplands.

The brolga is found across tropical northern Australia, southwards through north-east and east central areas, as well as central New South Wales to western Victoria. The homebody of the bird world, the brolga doesn’t migrate and has been known to use the same nesting area for up to 20 years.     

Outside of the breeding season, brolgas like to keep it all in the family, forming large family groups and flocks of up to one hundred birds. When breeding season begins, the cranes often inhabit shallow marshes where they build nests using grasses, sticks and mud. It’s during this time where the brolga’s mesmerising display of courtship takes place. Ever the romantics, brolgas are thought to mate for life, with a pair’s bond strengthened by an energetic display of dancing, leaping, wing-flapping and loud trumpeting.

Once the birds establish a territory, they defend it with their life. A single clutch of usually two white eggs that are blotched with brown, and purple are laid within the nest mound and both the male and female brolgas take turns incubating the eggs for around 32 days. The love birds then look after the chicks together.

The silhouette of the dancing brolga is well-known within Australia, and in 1986 the Queensland government made the brolga its official bird emblem. It also decorates the state’s coat of arms, alongside the red deer.

The name brolga is taken from the Aboriginal language Gamilaraay, in which they are called burralga. The bird is deeply respected within Aboriginal culture and many dances and traditional legends are associated with the brolga with Indigenous performers mimicking their impressive dancing technique.   

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Amazingly, mulgara don’t need to drink water, making this tiny furry creature the perfect desert dweller.

Easily camouflaged into the desert floor, the mulgara has sandy to ginger coloured fur with males measuring around 30cm long and females slightly shorter in length.

A mohawk-style dorsal crest of black hairs can be seen on the tip of its tail, and this marsupial is compact with short ears and legs, a broad head and a pointed muzzle.

Mulgaras live in arid, sandy regions within central Australia, along the border of South Australia and Northern Territory and are indigenous to this country.

Their tunnels vary depending on what habitat they call home and range from those with one entrance and deeper branching tunnels in Queensland, to those with many entrances and pop-up holes in central Australia.

A keen hunter that uses its lightning speed to ambush its prey, the mulgara can attack a mouse meal or other small invertebrates, devouring its dinner from head to tail and then inverting the skin in an orderly fashion.

With the ability to eat up to 25 per cent of its own body weight in food, mulgaras dine on insects, other arthropods, and small vertebrates, and extract all the water they need from this food, producing highly concentrated urine and dry pellets of poo as a result.  

Mostly ground dwelling, mulgaras can climb and have excellent senses of sight, smell, and hearing, running into their burrows to escape the clutches of would-be predators like foxes, large snakes, and dingos.

Breeding during the cooler months of winter, young are raised within the pouch, which consists of a simple skin fold. Each year one litter of mulgara is born per female, and these young hang from the mother’s body and are weaned by four months of age.

Unlike other dasyruids, they don’t die after breeding and this has meant the numbers of mulgara have remained relatively stable in the wild, depending on natural cycles of rainfall and food availability.       

Related: 8 adorable Aussie desert-dwellers

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Although considered a large spider species, which is enough to make an arachnophobe tremble, the name of these interesting spiders is far more literal, coming from their ability to mimic a bird’s poo, or ‘droppings’.

Found throughout much of eastern and southern Australia, with rare sightings in central Australia and near Uluru, the bird-dropping spider (Celaenia excavata) also considers New Zealand its home.

Additionally known as the death’s head spider (thanks to its skull-like markings) and the orchard spider (as it hunts for moths on fruit trees), the bird-dropping spider’s large size, unusual colour patterns and resting posture make this orb-weaver hard to forget.

With venom that isn’t considered toxic to humans, these spiders make their homes within many suburban backyards, although actually spotting one can be quite the challenge. Their clever camouflage works just as well on humans as it does on their most common predator – birds. While males have a tiny abdomen measuring only 2.5mm long, it’s the females that make their presence known at a sizeable 2cm long. Their broad, triangular abdomen, decorated in sploshes of white and brown, easily resembles bird poo and with its legs tucked tightly against its body, it’s easy to see why this creature tends to go unnoticed.

A master of disguise, the bird-dropping spider uses another clever trick to trap its prey. Feeding almost exclusively on male moths, the spider hangs from the edge of a leaf or twig on a short silk thread at night-time, with its legs outstretched. Releasing a chemical scent that impersonates the airborne sex pheromone released by female moths to attract a mate, the spider lurches and grabs any male moth that flies in for a closer look.

Reproduction is a little left of centre for the bird-dropping spider, with females constructing a series of large marble-shaped brown balls or egg sacs, held together with silk. As many as 13 sacks, each containing 200 eggs, are as big as the spider itself and look almost like a miniature piece of art as they hang from a tree branch. The female sits on top of the impressive structure by day and dangles below by night, awaiting unsuspecting moths who might fly by.

Related: Australian spiders: the 10 most dangerous

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More closely related to the elephant than the dolphin or whale, this gentle seagrass-munching mammal is often given the name ‘sea cow’ and rightly so. Grazing day and night on the aquatic version of lawn, this ocean dweller is a true mixture of all things great and small, and Australia is lucky enough to host the largest number of dugongs in the world.

Tipping the scales at an impressive 400kg, the dugong is a cousin of the manatee. Sharing a pudgy, plump body shape, the dugong has a dolphin fluke-like tail and lives exclusively in salt water, unlike its fresh-water swimming relative. With an elongated snout that faces downwards towards its food source, the dugong is likely to give some spikey kisses, thanks to its enormous and sensitive, bristly upper lip which it uses to help find food. Like elephants, dugongs have tusks, which are projections of the incisor teeth and usually only visible through the skin in mature males.   

Primarily herbivorous, the dugong snacks day and night, grazing on up to 30kg of seagrass per day. Generally cruising the shallow waters of protected bays, mangrove channels or sheltered areas of inshore islands, dugongs tend to stay in water around 10 metres deep. These aquatic mammals occasionally dive down to depths of 39 metres to feed on their main food source, seagrass beds of phanerogamous seagrasses, which are found in warm waters around coastlines, both north and south of the equator.

With a brain that makes up just 0.01% of its body weight (that’s 300grams of 400kg!), the gentle dugong could be presumed to be one of the more dim-witted oceanic species. Yet despite this brain to body mass ratio, dugongs have good memories and can remember specific feeding grounds, in which they return to after travelling away.

Found in groups of either mother and calf pairs or up to 200 animals, dugongs are semi-nomadic and may spend a considerable time journeying to find specific seagrass beds. The eyesight of the dugong is poor, with the animal relying on other senses to create a mental map of their surroundings. Underwater, dugongs use chirps, whistles, barks, and other sounds that echo to communicate with each other, with varying amplitude and frequency of signals implying a possible purpose behind the sounds.    

Using their sense of smell to detect other dugongs or to locate aquatic plants, these gentle and shy creatures also have sensory bristles all over their bodies which they use to sense vibrations from their surrounds. Touch is also important and mothers and their calves engage in physical communication including nuzzling and nose touching to help strengthen their relationship.      

A female enters maturity between the ages of 12 and 17 years of age and may have one calf every three to seven years. A calf can swim as soon as it is born and is nursed by its mother. Baby dugongs have also been seen to suck on their fin for comfort and either swims beneath its mother under her fin or rides on top of her.

Related: A guide to knowing your dugongs from your manatees

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One of three species of ibis in Australia, alongside the straw-necked ibis and glossy ibis, this inquisitive bird has been sacred to indigenous communities for thousands of years and is an exceptional gauge of wetland health.

Found in eastern, northern, and southwestern Australia, the habitat of the white ibis includes shallow fresh and tidal marshy wetlands, tidal mud flats, swamps, lagoons, open grasslands, and floodplains. The white ibis has adapted to live in Australia’s east-coast urban areas including parks, gardens and even rubbish dumps and are often seen in cities including Sydney, Wollongong, Brisbane, Perth, Gold Coast and Townsville.

This nomadic bird can fly large distances in search of food sources with one white ibis banded in Perth discovered in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s.

With an entirely white body and a black featherless head and neck, the Australian white ibis is famous for its long down curved black beak. The bird uses its long bill to dig for crayfish and mussels, which are among the aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates that make up the white ibis’ diet.

A decline in traditional habitat has seen the white ibis frequent populated urban areas and it is here that the bird has picked up its nickname of bin chicken, after supplementing its daily food intake with scraps from landfill sites, bins, and rubbish dumps. This more predictable food source has seen the population of white ibis grow. 

The breeding ritual of these birds is courteous and complicated, with a male securing a branch on a tall tree to attract a mate. A noisy display ensues, with often includes aggression towards other males, but when a female arrives, the male white ibis bows to her from his branch. A twig is then offered and once the female accepts, the bonding process begins, finally cemented when the pair fly off to build a nest together. Two to three eggs are laid in a shallow nest made of sticks, grasses, or reeds, with chicks born without feathers and helpless. White ibis chicks leave the nest at around 48 days of age.     

As they take to the sky, the Australian white ibis forms a distinct V-shaped pattern. Flying at low altitude between foraging and roosting sites, the Australian white ibis can reach speeds of up to 30kms per hour.  

Incredibly social birds, the white ibis feeds, and roosts individually or in a flock, sometimes with thousands of birds. Urban ibis’s can be cheeky and inquisitive, sometimes stealing the sandwich of unsuspecting picnic goers, right from their hands.

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Despite the chorus of slapping and yelping that often accompanies an Australian summer BBQ, it might come as a surprise to some that mozzies don’t intentionally ‘bite’ their victims. With over 3,500 types of mosquitos found throughout the world and over 350 right here in Australia, the mosquito ‘feeds’ on blood as a necessity to reproduce and survive.

A soft bodied insect, the mosquito belongs to the same family as the house and fruit fly as they all have two clear, veined wings. It’s these two wings which create the well-known whinging sound that mozzies are famous for, with the pitch of the buzzing changing as the creature varies its flapping frequency.

A mosquito’s long feather-like antennae can detect carbon-dioxide from a person’s breath and movement in the air, while the mouthpiece of the female insect forms a piercing-sucking spout used to extract blood from its victims.

Found throughout Australia, mosquitos often make their home in developed urban areas close to human populations. Mosquitos breed in soft moist soil or stagnant fresh water sources like wetlands, storm water drains, bird baths or anywhere that water has been left to pool.

Male mosquitos feed on nectar and plant fluids, whereas the female mosquito dines on a meal of blood that is used to nourish developing eggs. A few days after her nutrient rich supper, she lays about 200 eggs on a watery surface. The majority of mosquito species produce ‘rafts’ where a collection of eggs joins together and float as one until they hatch two to three days later. Born in water, the larvae or ‘wrigglers’ breathe air and come attached with their own snorkelling adaptation – a siphon attached to their abdomen which they use to breathe at the water surface.

Female mozzies of different species can be fussy when it comes to their host. The Aedes alternans prefers to bite humans, while other species like the Culex australiucus prefer the blood of rabbits or birds. The mosquito has several techniques in which to find a host, including detection through body odour, increases in carbon dioxide and air pressure, as well as heat.

A mozzie bite can leave the skin itchy, with a red bump, thanks to the allergic reaction from the mosquitos saliva. The female injects a small amount of saliva into the host which contains chemicals to stop the host’s blood from clotting while they feed. Mosquitos are also known carriers of diseases and viruses which can also be transmitted through a mozzie bite, with Ross River Fever the most transmitted mosquito virus in Australia.     

On a positive note, mosquitos help pollinate some flowering plants and are an important food source for native animals including birds, fish, bats, frogs, and other insects like dragonflies and damselflies.     

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Living in two different areas of Australia that are kilometres apart, the broad-toothed rat inhabits the wet alpine and subalpine heaths and woodlands in Kosciusko National Park, the nearby nature reserves (Bimberi and Scabby) and the Buccleuch State Forest in the south of NSW as well as in the Barrington Tops. In Victoria, the creature lives in South Gippsland, the Otway Ranges and Wilsons Promontory and in Tasmania, it lives in the wet sedge and grasslands of western Tasmania.

The broad-toothed rat is herbivorous and loves to munch on grasses and sedge stems, as well as seeds and moss spore cases. Gathering food mostly at night during the summer and autumn months and in the late afternoon in winter, this native rodent is named after its wider-than-usual molar teeth, which help it chew through the stalks of grasses and sedges.

Despite some people lumping the broad-toothed rat and its other native rodent cousins in with the introduced black rat and mouse species, native rodents are essential to many Australian ecosystems. They unknowingly disperse seeds by forming seed caches and provide burrows and runways for other small mammal species such as the bush rat and dusty antechinus, that cannot dig their own.

The broad-toothed rat breeds in the summer months and has a litter size of between one and four young. Nests are built of grass in the understorey or under logs, with the reproductive behaviour of the mammal triggered by the environment around it, with changes in snow cover and temperatures potentially catastrophic for the native rat.  

Despite having very few native predators, the broad-toothed rat is still under threat from introduced foxes and feral cats which prey on the small mammal. Changes in the local ecosystems in alpine regions due to the ski industry such as in Kosciusko National Park, may also have a negative effect on the broad-toothed rat’s existing habitat.   

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Deemed one of the worst invasive species in the world, the cane toad has caused widescale damage to Australia’s vulnerable native wildlife since its introduction.    

With dry and warty skin, the cane toad is a large species of toad with a light-brown or yellow-brown back with dark patches and spots. With a horizontal pupil, the iris is gold with characteristic spotting and the cane toad has large parotid glands on its shoulders which secrete toxins when the toad is threatened. The unique appearance of the adult cane toad makes it unlike any of Australia’s native species, yet young toads do look like many Uperoleia and Crinia species but lack colourful markings on the groin and backs of the thigh.

Breeding during any time of the year, the cane toad lays between a staggering 8,000 and 30,000 eggs at one time, in long strings in nearly all bodies of freshwater they can access. Black tadpoles are around 3cm in length and often swim together in schools at the bottom of the water body, taking an average of four to six weeks to develop into toads. In warm, tropical conditions, toadlets can reach adults size within the year, but this may take twice as long in cooler climates.

Needing constant access to moisture to survive, the cane toad absorbs water through the skin on its belly from dew, moist sand, or other moist environments. Cane toads can die from water loss or from absorbing too much water if they are forced to stay in flooded conditions.

With no natural predators, the cane toad dines mostly on insects, but they will eat almost anything including birds, other frogs and toads, reptiles, small mammals and even pet food and human rubbish!

The milky poison, called bufotoxin, within the toad’s parotid glands can kill both domestic pets and Australian native species when animals bite, lick, or eat them. The cane toad also outcompetes native fauna for resources like breeding habitat and food and there has been massive ecological damage documented as the toad expands into new parts of the country in strong numbers.  

Infiltrating other parts of the world including Florida, Hawaii, the Philippines, the Caribbean islands, the western Pacific islands, and Papua New Guinea to name a few, the cane toad has no known predators or diseases to control its population growth. Often accidently transported within Australia to new locations, in pots plants or unsuspectingly within cars or trucks, cane toads have now surpassed Australia’s northern landscape and are moving westward at an estimated 40km – 60km per year.   

Scientists admit there is unlikely to ever be a broadscale method of controlling cane toads within Australia. However, it is possible to control cane toad numbers in small areas, such as around a specific creek or pond, by collecting the cane toad’s long jelly-like egg strings from the water or disposing of the adult toads humanly.

Research is underway into understanding the toad’s impact on native fauna and to investigate the adaptations of native species since the arrival of the cane toad and how vulnerable species can be protected moving forward.  

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With a distinctly loud, high-pitched whistle and a rolling ‘carr-ack’ call whilst flying, the Australian king-parrot calls the east coast and ranges of Australia home. From as far north as Cooktown in Queensland, all the way down to Port Campbell in Victoria, these birds are seen in small groups, sometimes flying alongside various species of rosella.

Rainforests and wet sclerophyll forests are the king-parrot’s preferred habitat, where they can forage in the trees and on the ground for seeds and fruit. While it isn’t unusual to spot the bird in suburbia, if disturbed, they usually fly off quickly accompanied by a loud screech and often don’t land again until completely out of view.  

During breeding season between September and January, the Australian king-parrot lays its eggs on a bed of decayed wood dust, at the very bottom of a deep hollow in a tree trunk. The entrance to the tree can be as high as 10 metres in the air, with the eggs nestled deep within its trunk, near the ground, at a height of just 0.5 metres. Around five eggs are incubated for a period of 20 days, kept safe and cool within the tree trunk, especially on Australia’s hot summer days. 

Occasionally bred in aviaries, king-parrots can be calm and quiet household pets if hand-raised. Unlike some of their talkative relatives, the Australian king-parrot has a limited ‘talking’ ability and prefers not to be handled, despite bonding readily with people.

Although famous for their distinctly red and green feathers, some king-parrot wing feathers appear to have a yellow glow when viewed under ultraviolet light. Whilst humans have three types of cones in their retina, many birds have four, and this allows them to see into the ultraviolet wavelengths.

Related: How to attract your favourite birds to your garden

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Often mistaken for a whale, the whale shark is most definitely a fish and breathes via its gills. There are some similarities between whales and whale sharks, however, starting with the commonality of the whale shark being a filter feeder like a baleen whale such as the humpback and regarding its imposing size, the whale shark is quite literally, as big as a whale! Yet with cartilage instead of bone, the whale shark is a true shark and has the potential to grow up to 20 metres in length and weigh in at 20 tonnes, making it easily the largest in its family.

As aesthetically appealing as they are commanding, these gentle giants are easily recognised thanks to a distinctive pattern of white spots and stripes on their dark bluish-grey skin. With a pale, bare belly, the unique patterning on top helps the whale shark to blend in with its aquatic surrounds but also acts like a fingerprint and is exclusive to each individual whale.

Preferring their waters on the warmer side, whale sharks are found throughout the world’s tropical and warm, temperate seas. Travelling throughout the Indian Ocean, this shark species is largely represented within Australian waters, and is found mostly off the coast of northern Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, with few sightings in waters surrounding Victoria and New South Wales.          

With still much to learn about these majestic creatures, the whale shark mysteriously migrates and can travel thousands of kilometres in search of enough plankton to fuel its large body mass. Famously aggregating every spring at the continental shelf off the central west coast of Australia, they have become welcomed visitors to Ningaloo Marine Park, off Exmouth and Coral Bay. Whale shark ecotourism is well managed in this part of the coast, with snorkelers descending on the area each year between April to July to swim next to these docile creatures with scientists able to better educate people about the globally-vulnerable species.

Although little is known about the whale shark’s life cycle, they are thought to have a fast growth rate when they are young, then things slow right down, taking a long time for the fish to reach maturity at around eight or nine metres in length. A female shark gives birth to fully-formed live young that grow from eggs in the mothers’ uteri prior to birth. Up to 300 pups are born after an unknown gestation period and they are between 40 and 70cm in length.

Despite a threatening 3000 teeth arranged in 300 rows within the whale shark’s mouth, these teeth are tiny and neither bite nor chew! One of only three species of filter feeding sharks, the whale shark strains planktonic organisms including krill, jellyfish, and crab larvae, from the ocean water through its gills using a fine mesh of grill rakers.

With very few oceanic predators, except the blue marlin and blue sharks which sometimes prey on young whale sharks, humans are the biggest threat to these gentle giants. Hunted in some parts of its watery terrain for its flesh, liver oil, cartilage, and fins, with whale shark fins and meat still sold for high prices in countries including Taiwan and China. Floating plastic rubbish in the ocean can also injure or kill a whale shark and their habit of swimming close to the ocean’s surface leaves this shark open to injury from boats. 

Related: Whale shark dethrones kodiak bear as world’s largest omnivore

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Traditionally found in rainforests and wet sclerophyll forests, but also living in drier scrubs, the brush turkey can be spotted along Australia’s east coast as high as Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula, all the way down to Sydney and the Illawarra regions of New South Wales.

One of the messiest eaters in the forest, brush turkeys break open rotten logs with their feet in search of insects and feast on seeds and fallen fruit after racking through leaf litter.

Male brush turkeys are the original compost makers, spending around a month layering leaves and dirt to make a mound the size of a car, to attract a mate. The mounds generate heat, which in turn incubates eggs laid by the several female brush turkeys who leave once their job is done. It’s the male’s role to protect the eggs (sometimes up to 50!) but once they hatch, he, too, disappears, leaving the brush turkey chicks to dig their way out of the leaf litter alone. Amazingly, chicks are fully feathered, can walk and are able to fly almost immediately after hatching and can independently fend for themselves.

This primitive nesting behaviour of dumping eggs in a nest mound and leaving them to hatch, aligns with the fact that brush turkeys are the most ancient member of the megapods bird family that dates back 30 million years and includes chickens, quails, peacocks, and pheasants. In fact, the process of egg incubation for the brush turkey is more closely aligned to the crocodile, than a normal bird.

In many parts of Australia, the brush turkey are totems for Aboriginal people and have slowly grown in numbers since native animals were nationally protected in 1972. Habitat loss and threats from both feral species as well as urban cats and dogs, are the brush turkey’s greatest danger, yet a brush turkey can escape a would-be predator, by instantly shedding all its tail feathers to avoid being grabbed.    

Despite their mess-making tendencies and sometimes problematic nest mound location choices in urban areas, the brush turkey is a surviving relic from Australia’s bird history and learning to live with these messy gardeners is important for their continual survival.      

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Often the first on the scene when local fisherman return with a day’s catch, the Australian pelican is found throughout the country, as well as in Papua New Guinea, west Indonesia, with occasional sightings in New Zealand and other western pacific islands. 

One of seven species of pelican found throughout the world, the Australian pelican is hard to miss, with a bill that can reach up to 46cm in length for males. The gular pouch (the stretchy patch of skin between the bones on the lower bill) is another distinctive characteristic which can hold over 13 litres of water when stretched.

The pouch and bill play an important role in finding dinner for the Aussie pelican, with the bill’s in-built sensitivity helping to locate fish in murky water. A hook or ‘nail’ on the upper part of the bill is also useful for gripping food. The pouch isn’t used to store marine snacks for later as some may think, but instead acts as a type of fishing net, with the pelican plunging their bill into the water in the hope of catching prey. The bird then draws the pouch to its breast, emptying the water and manoeuvring its meal into position to swallow.   

A decedent of an ancient group of birds, the Australian pelican has remained relatively unchanged for millions of years. A fossil discovered in France preserved part of a pelican’s skull, neck, and the entire bill, providing a snapshot of the bird from some 30 million years ago. Amazingly, the fossilised bill was around 30cm long, highlighting how the pelican has barely changed over this timeframe and can be considered a living fossil of sorts.

The Australian pelican is a colonial breeder, grouping together with up to 40,000 fellow birds on secluded beaches or islands to mate. Females build a nest on the ground called a scarpe, and line it with nearby vegetation and feathers. Male and female pelicans share the incubation of their eggs, with females laying two eggs per season. Chicks leave the nest to join up to 100 other chicks in a large group known as ‘creches,’ and stay protected here until they can fly at two months of age.

Recognised as an Aussie icon for many, Australia’s Indigenous people have long regarded the Australian pelican as sacred. It was harvested for food by the Yandruwandha people in the Coongie Lakes and the Wangkamura people of South Australia credit the pelican for the creation of opals and fire.  

Related: 7 things you definitely didn’t know about Aussie pelicans

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Preferring to tuck away out of sight in crevices, tree hollows, amongst plants and even under your outdoor toilet lid during the day, the green tree frog emerges at night to feast on insects, spiders, and other small mammals such as lizards, snakes, and even tiny bats. Catching their meal in their strong jaw, the green tree frog then uses its hand to help force the food down.  

Green tree frogs ‘drink’ water through their skin, which also produces a fluid that is thought to be antibacterial and antiviral. The green tree frog communicates with a low, repetitive ‘crawk, crawk, crawk,’ especially when its raining, with male frogs using an inflatable bag under their jaw to help project their call to a potential mate during breeding season.  

Breeding takes place in permanent water sources like swamps, puddles, and ponds, with green tree frogs able to lay between 1000 and 2000 eggs per year. Being amphibians, green tree frogs begin their lives as water-dwelling tadpoles then transition into air-breathing frogs and can live between 16 and 20 years in captivity. Birds, dogs, cats, and cane toads are among the many predators who prey on the green tree frog, with their ability to climb and hide in trees, a helpful adaptation to avoid becoming dinner. 

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There are four species of quoll within Australia, all sharing the same pointy snout, well-developed canines, and hairy tail, but the spotted-tail quoll is the only one to have its trademark white body spots extend to its tail.

Two other species of quoll occur outside of Australia – the bronze quoll (Dasyurus spartacus) and New Guinea quoll (Dasyurus albopunctatus).

Found in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania, the spotted-tail quoll lives in forests and bushlands. A mostly solitary, nocturnal creature, the spotted-tail quoll hunts during the night and shelters in hollow tree logs, rock crevices and caves during the day.

About the size of a domestic cat, the spotted-tail quoll gives birth to young that are as tiny as a grain of rice. Even though miniature and underdeveloped at birth, these pups continue to grow in the female’s pouch for another 12 weeks, at which point they begin eating food that the mother brings into the pouch. While carrying her young, the female walks with her hind quarters elevated, so as not to drag her belly on the ground. 

With the second strongest bite of any predatory mammal in the world, the spotted-tail quoll is only out-chomped by its close relative, the Tasmanian devil. A dedicated meat-lover, this spotty animal loves a good meal of greater glider, rabbit, long-nosed bandicoot, or ringtail possum.

Spotted-tail quolls can climb trees to escape a would-be predator and can put on quite a display if they feel threatened. Lowering their ears, crouching down low to the ground, and making a loud, high-pitched screeching sound when they are exposed to danger, the quoll will also hide in narrow den sites or cavities to stay out of harms way.                

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Filling their stomachs with huge amounts of water (and sometimes air), the pufferfish can blow themselves up to several times their regular size, intimidating their predators and making them a difficult snack to swallow.

If blowing up to the shape of a ball doesn’t scare away any would-be predators, then some pufferfish have spines on their skin to deter being eaten.

Other clever adaptions a pufferfish uses to keep itself safe include poisoning its enemies by secreting lethal toxins or even attacking other threatening animals with its beak-like teeth.

With over 120 species of pufferfish found across the globe, they are resilient and robust fish that can adapt to most environments, both freshwater and salt. Thriving in warm regions, pufferfish are typically solitary animals that prefer secluded environments with plenty of cover to hide in, such as coral reefs, reed-covered marshes and other areas where vegetation and water merge.   

Although pufferfish vary in colour, size and skin texture, all puffers have the same inflatable air sack, four teeth that are fused together to form a type of beak and are scaleless. Feeding on invertebrates and algae, larger pufferfish will even use their beaks to crack open clams, mussels, and shellfish.   

Pufferfish are highly toxic and contain tetrodotoxin, which makes them foul-tasting and poisonous to other fish. This unique substance also renders the puffer lethal to humans, with one single fish containing enough poison to kill 30 adults, with no known antidote. Despite an obvious toxicity, pufferfish are still considered an exotic delicacy in Japan. Known as fugu, this expensive treat is prepared only by trained, licensed chefs, with one wrong cut of fish leading to certain death for the customer.

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These cute critters have a few unique talents that set them aside from other native Australian possums and gliders, with their ability to journey easily over great distances being one of them. Living mainly in the treetops, the greater glider can travel up to 100metres in a single glide and can change directions at 90-degree angles during their flight. Using their long, fluffy tail as a type of rudder and altering the curvature of their gliding membranes to help them steer, the greater glider’s time saving mode of travel allows them to easily manoeuvre between their many dens.

Quite the property mogul, the greater glider can occupy a dozen tree hollows at any given time and some live between 20 dens within their territory. Once safe inside, this nocturnal, solitary creature wraps itself in its gliding membrane or patagia, just like a blanket, to keep itself warm and snug as it sleeps.       

The greater glider is a fussy eater, living off a highly specialised diet of eucalyptus leaves, buds, flowers, and mistletoe. With a hefty appetite, each greater glider needs around 1.5ha to trawl for leaves, and are dependent on large areas of undisturbed, tall forest with naturally found nesting hollows.

The greater glider was once common throughout the forests of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria but threats including large-scale bushfires, logging and urban development have dramatically reduced their habitat and distribution. Now added to the endangered species list within Australia, the greater glider can be found along the eastern eucalyptus forests as high as Mossman, QLD, right down to Daylesford, Victoria.     

A quiet animal, the greater glider has no distinctive call and doesn’t chat with its fellow tree-dwellers, but a whoosh-sound signifies that the glider is on the move. Once a single young is born after breeding season begins in March, the offspring suckles in its mother’s pouch for three to four months, then rides on its mother’s back for another few months until it is self-sufficient at nine months of age.

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Living on a diet of insects, scorpions have proven themselves worthy of their longevity as a species, through their unique ability to slow their metabolism to as little as one third of the typical rate for arthropods. This technique allows them to survive easily when food is scarce with some scorpions able to use a minimal amount of oxygen, whilst living on a meal of just one insect per year. Proof they are high up on the list of the world’s toughest creatures, researchers have even watched a completely frozen scorpion defrost in the sun, then walk away.  

All scorpions have a venomous sting. Thousands of people die each year from scorpion bites, but this statistic can be linked to around 25 species of scorpion found in northern Africa, Mexico, India, the Middle East, and parts of South America. Scorpions tend to be larger and more venomous in the northern parts of Australia, but they are not deadly, instead causing a sting that swells and feels painful for several hours. A scorpion’s stinger is found at the end of its long tail whereas the threatening pair of pincers at the head end of the body are used to catch prey.      

Scorpions hunt mainly at night and eat a range of arthropods including cockroaches, spiders, beetles, slaters, and millipedes. They use their pincers to grab their prey, then whip the poisonous tip of their tail (telson) forward to sting and kill their victim. The scorpion pours digestive juices onto its prey, then breaks it up with its jaws. Despite their threatening appearance, scorpions make a tasty treat for nocturnal birds, lizards, centipedes, rodents, and carnivorous marsupials.   

When scorpions reproduce, male and female scorpions find each other through earth vibrations, touch, and scent. Female scorpions give birth to live young which spend the early stages of their life on the mother’s back. Scorpions mature slowly, moulting between five and six times which allows them to grow into an adult size and most scorpions live between two and 10 years.

Species of scorpion commonly found in Australia include the brown scorpion (Urodacus manicatus), desert scorpion (Urodacus yaschenkoi), marbled scorpion (Lychas marmoreus), wood/forest scorpion (Cercophonius squama).

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Although they prefer cold water, orcas can live in all the world’s oceans from the Antarctic to the tropics. Orcas tend to follow their tummies and go where the food is, making their movement patterns less predictable than whales, which follow seasonal migration patterns. At the top of the food chain, orcas take advantage of their sharp 8cm long teeth and feast on a wide range of marine life including fish, penguins, seals, sea lions and seabirds. Ruthless in their pursuit of a meal, orcas are the ocean’s apex predator, meaning they have no natural predator and have even been known to hunt great white sharks and whales.

Orcas live in close knit groups, known as ‘pods’ in a matriarchal society, where knowledge is passed down to the younger generation by their elders. Older female orcas share information about hunting techniques, vocalisations and calls that are unique to their pod, and the specific ‘accent’ of the population. Pods usually contain up to 40 orcas and can be either resident or transient. Resident pods prefer to eat fish and transient pods enjoy a diet of marine mammals, resulting in niche specialisations that we see in orca populations today. Pods have evolved over millions of years to be genetically different from one another, with their own appearances and culture, yet each use effective, cooperative hunting techniques likened to a wolf pack.

Protective of their young, mother orcas give birth every 3–10 years and raise their young with the help of other adolescent females. Nursing for up to two years, the bond between mother and juvenile eventually weakens and young orcas must make the journey to find their own pod, with a few remaining within the original family group.

Highly intelligent, orcas communicate below the water’s surface through a series of clicks, pulsed call types and tonal whistles. Each pod has its own dialect, and this vocabulary is used in hunting and to maintain the group’s identity and cohesiveness. Once a common sight in marine park captivity, orcas would perform shows for human entertainment, but ongoing research indicates that artificial enclosures contribute to stress and the development of zoochosis (harmful repetitive behaviours) and this can lead to a reduced quality of life and lifespan for the orca. 

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Barking owls are medium- sized, brown owls, with white spots on the wings and a streaked breast. Found across New Guinea and its surrounding islands, and on mainland Australia except in central areas, the barking owl lives in open woodlands and on the edges of forests. A preference for inhabiting the fringe of bushland is likely due to the foraging behaviour of this bird, with proximity to rivers or swamps an added necessity to their habitat.         

Preferring to hunt in the first few hours after dusk and just before the sun rises again, the barking owl feeds mostly on insects during non-breeding season. During breeding season, the barking owl will eat larger prey such as small-medium sized mammals, birds, and reptiles, which it hunts either from the air or from an exposed perch.

Raising a single brood in a season, the barking owl makes its nest within an open hollow of a live tree trunk, that is lined with twigs and wooden debris. Pairs usually mate for the life of a partner and may use the same hollow nest for many years. The female barking owl lays between two and three eggs, and these take around 36 days to hatch, with the female incubating the eggs and the male providing food. Barking owl chicks remain dependant on their parents for several months and stay in the family unit until a few months before the next year’s breeding season which takes place between August and October. The baking owl is listed as vulnerable within Australia, with threats including land clearing and the loss of large, hollow-bearing trees in which the species depends for nesting.

Secondary agricultural poisoning, barbed wire fences and vehicle collisions are also recorded as threats to the population numbers of the barking owl.  

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But, despite their sometimes-fearsome appearance and seemingly creepy habits, they are largely harmless to humans. In fact, there’s a very good rationale for encouraging them to share your home with you as they’re particularly skilful at keeping down populations of bothersome insects, particularly cockroaches.

The fact that huntsman spiders don’t spin webs to catch food is another factor that makes them amenable housemates. These arachnids catch their food either by running it down or waiting still and ambushing it as it passes.

There are about 94 different species of huntsman spiders known to occur in Australia and most areas have several resident species.

In the bush these spiders are found living among loose bark on the ground or on trees. In homes – or even cars – they’ll hide away in dark corners during the day and appear from dusk onwards as night-time insects emerge. You’re more likely to see them in the home when it’s raining or conditions are humid.

Most huntsman spiders are quite docile creatures that prefer scurrying away to confrontation. Almost all species live alone,

although the sexes can have long and elaborate courtships before mating.

There is, however, one species native to Australia and known as the flat or social huntsman – Delena cancerides – in which hundreds of adults live with each other, share prey and jointly raise offspring together. This species occurs across mainland Australia as well as Tasmania and has been introduced to New Zealand.

Occasionally people have reported being bitten by a huntsman, and the outcome is usually no more than mild pain and swelling at the bite site, which is easily treated with a cold pack.

There is however, one species of huntsman – the badge huntsman (Neosparassus diana), which is found throughout Australia – that has a bite that’s known to produce more unpleasant symptoms, including severe localised pain and swelling at the bite site, accompanied by sweating, nausea and vomiting.

Although no one has every reportedly died from a huntsmen bite in Australia, if you have any concerns after a bite seek medical attention.

Related: Australian huntsman spiders: your friendly neighbourhood insect control

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But the species has become well-adapted to urban areas and is common in homes where it often builds lacy webs in window corners, hence its other common name – the window spider.

These arachnids arrange their messy silken retreats with a cone- or funnel-shaped tunnel at the centre or to one corner and wait behind this, hidden from potential predators such as birds. When prey lands on and becomes trapped by its sticky silken web the spider responds by racing up the tunnel to bite and seize it.

In their natural habitat, these spiders will often position themselves near injuries made in tree trunks by wood-boring insects and then wait for butterflies, bees and ants attracted to the sap that flows.

In urban areas black house spiders will make their webs near lights and lamps to take advantage of the flying insects that these attract.

These spiders are not usually aggressive, and females tend to remain hidden away in their webs, although the considerably smaller male often wanders about looking for mates.

When he finds a female he’ll attract her attention by plucking at her web and after making sure she’s receptive he may remain for several days, often mating with her repeatedly.

The female builds several egg sacs within her web. The spiderlings usually disperse but sometimes remain with their mother for a while, eating the smaller prey caught in her web that she usually ignores.

Black house spiders have been known to bite occasionally and although their venom is not deadly to humans it can cause nausea, localised swelling, and pain, which can be relieved by cold packs. Always seek medical attention if symptoms worsen or persist.

Note that although these spiders are black, relatively large and create a cone-shaped web that can superficially resemble that of the deadly funnel-web spiders, they are not related and certainly nowhere near as deadly.

Related: The common black house spider: a case of mistaken identity

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They’re found right across the mainland and in Tasmania but are most common in the county’s south-east.

Bull ants are mostly large ants, characterised by long, lean bodies, big eyes and huge, powerful, forward-pointing mandibles that can inflict a painful bite.

It’s not, however, the bite that you need to be worried about – although it’s certainly worth avoiding, particularly in the bigger species. It’s the sting located near the abdomen of these ants that you should be cautious of as this can inject a powerful venom that’s been known cause a sometimes deadly allergic reaction in people.

Most bull ant species are highly aggressive, have exceptional eyesight and will relentlessly target anything they see as a threat – and that means people. Unlike bees, which can sting only once, bull ants can use their sting repeatedly. If you’re stung an icepack can help relieve pain and swelling but seek medical attention quickly if you show any signs of an allergic reaction.

The smaller species, which often jump very quickly at threats, are commonly known as jumper ants.

Bulls ants live in colonies in subterranean nests that often have only a small opening but can spread for many meters underground.

The can support as many as 3000 individuals organised according to strict social structures.

A colony is comprised of: mostly of sterile female workers who forage on the ground and tend to eggs and larval ants; fertile females who briefly fly then live in the dark underground as queens for up to 15 years; and winged fertile males who have a short life flying in search of a queen to mate with before dying.

Recent research at the Australian National University identified that worker ants have highly developed night vison while their winged counterparts have better daytime vision.

The adult ants eat mostly nectar and sweet sticky honeydew excreted onto leaves by various insects, but ant larva are carnivorous and eat small insects captured and brought back to them by worker ants.

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In the same way that we recommend staying well away from funnel-web and redback species, all of which are potentially deadly, we strongly advise that you give mouse spiders, and particularly the red-headed species, a wide berth.

So far, the bite of this distinctive-looking species is not known to have killed anyone, but experts agree that its venom could certainly be potent enough to do so.

If you do get bitten apply emergency first aid and seek medical attention immediately. Funnel-web antivenom is known to be effective for this species.

All mouse spider species – of which Australia has eight – are readily recognisable by the bulbous appearance of the head and jaws.

And all are considered to potentially have very potent venom. The red-headed species is the one people are most likely to encounter.

It’s a large spider that’s found right across Australia, apart from Tasmania and the far north of the mainland but is most often encountered in New South Wales and Western Australia.

The reassuring news is that it’s not particularly aggressive, prefers undisturbed, non-urban habitats and is extremely reclusive.

The male of the species is particularly easy to recognise because of the bright red colouration on its head and dark-blue abdomen. The female in contrast is coloured dark brown all over.

The sexes, in fact, are so markedly different in appearance that they were at first thought to be two separate species.

One positive about this spider is that because it doesn’t particularly like areas that people do their paths rarely cross with those of humans.

Female mouse spiders live permanently in burrows up to a metre long that are often built into the banks of rivers and streams. They’re usually sees when they emerge from these subterranean homes during and after rain.

After males reach sexual maturity at about four years of age, they tend to wander in summer looking for mates. They die shortly after mating.

The reason the red-headed mouse spider has such a wide distribution is because it uses a method of dispersal known as ballooning.

This is uncommon in the spider group known as the mygalomorphs, to which mouse spiders belong. Relatives in this group include the funnel-webs, trapdoors, and the tarantulas.

During ballooning, spiderlings spin small parachutes of silk, which they use to travel on wind gusts, sometimes for many kilometres.

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Most are coloured brown or black and hairy, with a stocky build. They’re widespread in eastern and southern Australia, including Tasmania, and are mygalomorphs ­– the same general spider group as funnel-webs, for which they are often mistaken.

They are not as aggressive as funnel-webs and usually retreat quickly from any confrontation. If they are corned, however, they will rear up like funnel-webs, flash their large fangs and may bite.

Because of the size of the fangs, bites can be painful and may cause swelling but are not dangerous.

Nevertheless, there are many trapdoor species occurring in the same areas where funnel-webs occur so if you are bitten by a large black spider in south-eastern Australia, it’s better to err on the side of caution and seek medical attention.

All trapdoors live in burrows, and although many species do have a hinged trapdoor – a plug of dirt – concealing the opening, many don’t. Instead, the entrances to the burrows are simply circular openings at the surface of the ground.

Whether they have a trapdoor or not, all of these spiders are ambush predators that wait just inside the burrow entrance to pounce on any passing prey that comes too close.

The burrows usually extend underground for up to half a metre and are lined with silk.

Female trapdoors tend to be very long-lived but males are not. They mature after about three years, when they leave their burrows to find a female – or several, if they are lucky enough to avoid being eaten by the first female they mate with. Regardless of how many female encounters they might survive, they die shortly after leaving their burrows.

Related: Trapdoor spiders made a 10,000 km journey from Africa to Australia

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They’re the larva of an insect called the bag-shelter moth and are often seen following each other head-to-tail in chains of individuals.

The millions of long fine, needle-like hairs that cover each caterpillar are sharp and very brittle. These readily penetrate and break off in human skin and contain an irritating protein that produces a highly allergic response in most people.

The hair shafts are covered in microscopic barbs, making them extremely difficult to remove. If these hairs get in the eyes, they can cause blindness.

It’s known that pregnant horses that mistakenly eat these caterpillars when they’re on grass, will spontaneously abort their unborn foals.

Female bag-shelter moths lay their eggs on trees, usually wattles, that will provide food for the caterpillars once the hatch.

Touching the adult moths, which are very hairy, can also illicit a strong allergic response.

After hatching, large numbers – as many as 600 – of the caterpillars gather together and create a silk sack inside which they rest when they’re not feeding.

They leave the sack at dusk to forage at night on their food tree and return at dawn.

Being voracious eaters, they will sometimes defoliate their tree and need to move to another, nearby. It’s when they do this that you’re likely to see them moving as a single train, of up to 200 individual caterpillars, in search of a new tree.

In coastal areas the bags of caterpillars are located at the base of a food tree. In inland areas their located up higher in the branches.

These different lifestyles suggest there are at least two distinct species, possibly more, of processionary caterpillars, but this has yet to be proved.

Related: These congregating caterpillars are even more dangerous than they look

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It’s an epic excursion for a tiny creature that takes the species from its winter breeding grounds in Queensland’s Darling Downs and the dry inland plains of NSW and Victoria to the Snowy Mountains and Bogong High Plains of the Australian Alps, and back again.

From late September onwards young moths arrive at the Alps where they enter caves and crevices, mostly above an elevation of about 1800m. Here they line rock walls in their hundreds of thousands – up to 17,000 per square metre – to survive the hot months in a form of summer hibernation known as estivation.

They arrive at the Alps in their billions, representing a huge influx of high-fat, high-protein insect food that’s critical to Alpine ecosystems and is devoured by a range of animals, particularly marsupials. This summertime Bogong moth bounty has also been harvested for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples who feasted on the insects after roasting them whole.

In late February–early March those moths that that have survived the summer set off at night to fly to their breeding grounds where they mate, lay eggs and die.

Each female lays up to 2000 eggs in the ground. These hatch after about five days and, eating plant stems at ground level, the resulting larva grow and fatten until they reach a length of about 5cm.

These caterpillars are regarded as pests of crop plants, and many are killed each year by pesticides applied by farmers. Those that survive pupate in the ground and emerge in early spring to begin their migration back to the Alps.

They fly by night and feed on nectar, building up fat reserves ahead of their summer estivation.

In 2021, the bogong moth was added to the IUCN’s red list of threatened species, identified as endangered following crashes in recent years in the species’ population due to: protracted drought brought about by climate change; light pollution, which often sees adult moths fatally diverted from their migrations; and pesticide use.

Related: Solving the bogong moth mystery

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But an intensive investigation detailed in a paper in the Medical Journal of Australia in August 2003 debunked this. Researchers found that white-tailed spider bites only cause “minor effects in most cases” and are “very unlikely to cause necrotic ulcers”.

These native Australian spiders are easy to identify because of the unmissable white or cream dots at the end of their cigar-shaped abdomens, above the spinnerets.

There are two known species, but these would be virtually indiscernible to the average person. One species, Lampona murina, is thought to be found only in Queensland and the other, L. cylindrata, occurs in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania and has been introduced to New Zealand.

White-tailed spiders don’t spin silk to catch prey but are instead hunters of other spiders, finding and attacking them in their own webs. They hunt mostly at night and during the day will shelter outside under leaf litter, bark or rocks.

In urban areas they often enter homes to hunt for their spider prey, which includes redback, daddy-long-leg, funnel-web and trapdoor spiders. They particularly like black house spiders.

Inside homes white-tailed spiders often shelter by day under sheets or in clothing or shoes left on the ground, which is when people usually come across them.

They’re not aggressive or particularly fast-moving but they do have large fangs and, like most spiders, will defend themselves if threatened.

Like many other hunting arachnids, white-tailed spiders have special tufts of hair called scopulae at the ends of their legs, which allows then to walk on smooth, upright surfaces and across ceilings and windowpanes.

Related: The truth about white-tailed spiders

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Other nudibranchs usually live lower down in the water column or on the sea floor, but this species keeps itself afloat by swallowing and maintaining an air bubble in the stomach.

Blue dragons are sometimes found washed up on beaches, where their bright colouration makes them stand out against beach sand.

In the water, however, this vibrant blue is superb camouflage as, when viewed from below, it seems to disappear against the water. It’s also thought that this colouration may reflect harmful UV rays.

Among the main natural predators of blue dragons are loggerhead turtles. But an even more potent threat to these creatures is believed to be ocean pollution.

Related: The blue dragon is a master of disguise

The species occurs in temperate and tropical waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans and in Australia is found mostly along the mainland’s south-east coast, from southern Queensland to northern Victoria. It’s not been reported from Tasmanian waters.

Blue dragons have recently been turning up in areas where they’ve not been seen before, and it’s believed reasons for this may involve warming oceans and increased storm activity due to climate change.

Blue dragons feed on venomous siphonophores such as the Portuguese man-o-war and bluebottle, which also occur in ocean surface waters. The dragons appear immune to the nematocysts – stinging cells – of these jellyfish-like creatures.

They incorporate these cells into multiple finger-like structures protruding from their bodies, which provides them with a potent form of protection from predators.

These nematocysts and the venom they contain can be painful to people who touch them, meaning that if you come into contact with a blue dragon the experience can be like being stung by a bluebottle.

The venom released by these cells remains active even after blue dragons die.

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These centipedes are a physically powerful, fast-moving, nocturnal hunters with a potent venom that’s toxic to both insects and mammals. They deliver this via modified legs known as forcipules located at the front of the body and that curve around the head like fangs.

Some people who have been bitten by this centipede describe the pain as extreme and lasting for days, but others have said it’s no worse than a wasp or bee sting. As is the case for many other stings, pain can be relieved by the application of an icepack.

Although no one has been recorded as dying from a sting by this particular centipede species, there is a recent report of a young girl in the Philippines who died about a day after being bitten by a closely related species.

Giant centipedes are found in bushland throughout mainland Australia in a wide range of moist to dry habitats and have also been reported from northeast Tasmania. They’re also found in New Guinea, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, and parts of Southeast Asia.

They are most active on warm wet nights and by day often hide beneath rocks and leaf litter.

Females show a relatively high degree of maternal care for an invertebrate: they lay their eggs in clusters of up to 40 and remain curled around them guarding them from predators. Even after these hatch the mother will stay wrapped around her offspring for their first month or so of life.

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Willie wagtails are common across many areas of mainland Australia and surrounding islands, although they’re absent from Tasmania. They also occur in New Guinea and several other Pacific Islands.

They seem comfortable with people and will often approach closely. They feature often in Indigenous stories, including many in which they’re depicted as sneaky characters hanging at the fringes of campsites picking up secrets that they spread elsewhere.

Although willie wagtails are usually seen alone or in pairs, they often form family groups of adults and offspring. They are extremely territorial and will harass other birds – even those much larger than themselves, such as kookaburras and eagles – that might turn up on their home patch.

Willie wagtails have adapted well to the spread of agriculture, and you’ll often see them following cattle and other stock, picking up insects disturbed as they walk through grasses.

When breeding male willie wagtails are particularly noisy, calling repeatedly to advertise their territories, not only during the day but often also through the night.

These birds use grass to build neat cup-shaped nests that they’ll re-use year after year. Sometimes they’ll dismantle them and rebuild, recycling the same material. Inside, the nests are lined with feathers, fur, or hair, which you’ll sometimes wag tails picking straight out of the livestock they follow. On the outside these nests are covered with spider webs.

Up to four eggs are laid in a clutch and in a good year a pair can have four clutches. The young remain with their parents until the next clutch hatches, after which they’re chased away.

Scientists have labelled the willie wagtail the ‘werewolf’ of the bird world following a recent study that found they sang “in line” with the brightness of the moon. 

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These are nocturnal spiders that hide away inconspicuously among leaves during the day but are usually not hard to miss at night.

That’s when they’ll be out looking for a feed having built their large wheel-shaped webs in well-lit places to where night-time flying insects are attracted.

Garden orb weavers are large and hairy, often with beautiful markings in tones that range from red-brown to yellow, and although they’re harmless, walking into their strong sticky webs by mistake can be disconcerting.

If one has set up its web in a place where you like to walk, gently break it for a couple of nights until its builder gets the hint and relocates its snare to another location.

The web is one of the most remarkable aspects of these spiders. Its structure makes it strong but near-invisible, while allowing for a large capture area for prey.

The spider sits in the middle facing downwards and quickly responds to the vibrations from a struggling insect caught in the web’s sticky silk by scurrying to it, deftly wrapping it up tightly in more silk and biting it, then moving back to wait for the venom to take effect.

Garden org weavers construct, take down and rebuild their webs on a daily basis, and usually take no more than 30-35 minutes to complete a large web.

It’s worth having orb weavers around because they can reduce insect pests, particularly mosquitoes, around the home.

They’ll bite if provoked, as any spiders will, but are not harmful and their venom has barely any impact on people. There can be mild pain and swelling around a bite site and you might experience some nausea. Do, however, seek medical attention if symptoms are more severe or persist.

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Also known as the Tasmanian tiger – because it’s a carnivore with striped markings – much of the intrigue about this marsupial is about whether it still survives today.

Fossil evidence as well as ancient indigenous rock art that depicts it in north-west Western Australia, indicate that the species was once widespread across the Australian mainland and New Guinea. Its distribution was possibly restricted from about 3000 years ago by the arrival of the dingo to Australia as well as hunting by humans.

By the time Europeans first arrived in Australia, about 250 years ago, the thylacine was the largest living marsupial carnivore and found only on Tasmania, its last populations having been restricted to the island state when rising sea levels cut it off from the mainland about 14,000 years ago.

Although there’s evidence that Indigenous Australians may have hunted and eaten the thylacine, the species lived in harmony with humans until Europeans began establishing pastoral properties in Tasmania. It was blamed for killing sheep and other farm animals, particularly poultry, and a government bounty was put on the species head. As a result, it was hunted mercilessly until, apparently, no more survived.

The last-known living individual thylacine died in Tasmania in captivity – at Hobart Zoo – in 1936, and the species was officially declared extinct in 1982.

But some people remain convinced that the thylacine survives today, perhaps in the dense forests of Tasmania’s wilderness areas, far away from where people live.

The thylacine was a reclusive and mostly nocturnal creature that looked and acted like a medium-sized dog. In fact, through a process known as convergent evolution – whereby non-related species living similar lifestyles develop similar physiological features – it had many features of a dog, including its head shape and large powerful jaws.

Being a marsupial one of the main differences to a dog was its mode of reproduction. Like other marsupials, females gave birth to very underdeveloped young and raised them at first in a pouch, which was back-ward facing. Interestingly males also had a partially developed pouch.

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Although, it’s certainly possible for a person to receive a bite from a daddy-long-legs, few have ever been reported. Having tiny fangs no longer than 0.25mm, it’s unlikely that if you were bitten by one that you’d even notice it barely penetrating your skin. And there’s no proof that the venom is particularly potent, even against insects – its main prey – let alone mammals, such as humans.

The reputation, however, of this species for hunting, attacking, and eating other spiders, including species that are potentially dangerous to humans, such as redbacks, is certainly well-deserved.

And that makes daddy-long-legs particularly useful to have around the home. That, however, comes with a caveat. Yes, they’re a more environmentally friendly alternative to using pesticides as a way to keep venomous spider numbers down around your house. But this is an introduced species and, unfortunately, it’s usually native spider species that are most affected by its presence. Fortunately, it prefers to live in warm dark places, such as those in inside houses and other buildings, not outside in natural habitats.

The daddy-long-legs is originally from subtropical Asia but, having accompanied humans in their global spread, the species is now found throughout the world in warm locations, including across Australia. In fact, it’s now one of Australia’s most common spider species.

The bodies of daddy-long-legs spiders are almost translucent, meaning that if they’re viewed under a microscope you’ll see their blood moving through them.

Related: The daddy longlegs myth that we keep falling for

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This slug is part of a unique suite of unusual animals – known as the Mount Kaputar land snail and slug community – that have been stranded near the top of this mountain.

At last count the group contained 20 snail and this one slug species. Other unique animals in this unique group include the Kaputar hairy snail and several cannibal snail species that catch and eat other snails by following their slime trails.

All of these strange molluscs have evolved in isolation for such a very long time – trapped near the top of the mountain, as if they were on an island – that they’ve developed features unlike animals found elsewhere in the world.

The community lives only in a tiny alpine forest that’s no bigger than 1000h. That is thought to have survived from many millions of years ago when Australia was part of the great southern supercontinent known as Gondwana and was covered with lush moist forests. These forests contracted as the country warmed and dried and the forest on Mt Kaputar is thought to be a remnant of those.

Mount Kaputar pink slugs spend most of their time hidden away beneath damp leaf litter. But they appear in their hundreds at night after rain to feed on tree moss and algae.

Although the unique ecological community that contains this slug is now protected it survives in a delicate balance and a changing climate, bring increased temperatures, could readily lead to its demise.

No one is sure why the Mount Kaputar pink slugs are such an outlandish colour, but it’s possible that it might provide them with camouflage among fallen autumn snow gum leaves on the forest floor.

Related: Rare neon-pink slug survives bushfires

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However, although it’s certainly regarded as the “world’s most dangerous bird” by the Guinness World Records and there have been reports from many people of close encounters with aggressive cassowaries, there’s only been one documented human death caused by these birds in Australia.

That dates to 1926, when a 16-year-old boy had his jugular vein severed by the kick of a bird near Mossman, in Queensland, that he’d reportedly been attacking with dogs. In the US in 2019 an elderly man died from injuries inflicted by a cassowary that he kept on his Florida property.

Along with its size, what makes a cassowary so formidable are its muscular legs, the 10cm-long daggerlike talons on the middle toe of each of its feet, and its ability to leap as high as 1.5m into the air.

There are three species of cassowary, and this – Casuarius casuarius johnsonii – is the largest, and the only one found in Australia. It’s also the world’s second largest flightless bird species by weight after Africa’s ostrich. Australia’s emu is taller than the southern cassowary but weighs less.

Related: Jungle royalty: the enigmatic cassowary

In Australia, cassowaries are found only in Queensland’s Wet Tropics and Cape York Peninsula. They’re solitary birds as adults, outside of breeding, which occurs in winter to early spring – usually June–September. Females can mate with several males during a breeding season and then produce several nests, each with as many as five eggs.

It’s then the males that will incubate the eggs alone, tend to the nests and raise the chicks for up to nine months after they hatch. A male during the breeding or nesting season can be very aggressive and highly protective of its

eggs or offspring. If you come across a cassowary in a rainforest, remain calm and quiet and slowly back away.

As the largest native animal in Australian rainforests – and with long glossy black feathers arranged like a cape, a mostly blue face, fleshy red wattles hanging from its neck, and a 17cm tall helmet-like crest on its head – it’s impossible to confuse a cassowary with any other bird.

The crest, which is known as a casque, is made of keratin, the same protein in our fingernails. Its purpose is not exactly clear, but it’s been suggested that it may protect the head as a cassowary runs through the forest, which it can do at 50kmph. It’s also been hypothesised that the casque could be used as a weapon; for digging for good or knocking fruit from trees; possibly function as a resonating chamber to enhance its calls; or simply be a sexual ornament that’s attractive to mates.

The southern cassowary has suffered extensively from the clearing, degradation and fragmentation of rainforest habitat and is now endangered. This has wider implications for the specie’s forest home because these birds are crucial in spreading the seeds of rainforest plants. One study found that they eat the fruits of at least 75 different types of plants.

Other serious threats to the species include domestic dog attacks and accidents with motor vehicles.

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People usually come across Irukandji while swimming off a boat, but these tiny jellyfish can also be swept inshore by winds and currents so they may be encountered close to swimming beaches. So far, two deaths have been recorded as being caused by Irukandji. But the species is thought to be responsible for many more cases of people needing hospitalisation while their bodies fight the toxin from stings.

Carukia barnesi –  the species most often known by the common name Irukandji – was the first of what’s now known to be as many as 20 species of small ‘cubozoan’ jellyfish that can cause Irukandji Syndrome. That term was coined in the 1950s by doctor and natural historian Hugo Flecker to describe a set of inexplicable symptoms seen at the time in a number of swimmers. He named it after an Aboriginal tribe, the Irukandji, located near Cairns, in North Queensland, in the area where the syndrome was first reported.

Later ­– by famously subjecting himself, his teenage son and a cautiously willing local lifeguard to the stings of the creature – pathologist Jack Barnes found the cause of this syndrome was a tiny box jellyfish species that he had discovered. Now known by the scientific name Carukia barnsei, it’s this jellyfish species that’s most commonly known as the Irukandji.

Like so many other jellyfish it’s transparent and very hard to see in the water. It has a cube-shaped bell, with a tentacle extending off each corner. At rest these are just 25cm long, but they can each be extended four-fold to a metre. This jellyfish hunts by day, attracting fish by waving around these tentacles, which are studded with harpoon-like stinging cells known as nematocysts. These fire at rapid speed at the slightest of touches, and the retractable tentacles pull dead prey up to the bell to be consumed.

Unlike most other jellyfish, the bell of the Irukandji is also densely equipped with nematocysts ­– about 5000 per cm².

Anyone who thinks they may have been stung by an Irukandji should seek medical assistance as soon as possible. Outwardly the effects of an Irukandji sting look similar to those of an anaphylactic reaction, but the impact on the body’s physiology is more like that of an amphetamine overdose. Symptoms include generalised muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, back aches, powerful stomach cramps and an “impending feel of doom”.

Related: Scientists have successfully hatched Irukandji eggs. Here’s why that’s important

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In 1984 this species became the first shark anywhere in the world to be safeguarded under an act of parliament, when it was declared a protected species in New South Wales waters. Grey nurse sharks now continue to be protected under fisheries legislation in waters off NSW, Western Australia, Tasmania and Queensland.

The grey nurse shark, which is also known as the sand tiger shark and spotted ragged-tooth shark, is found worldwide in tropical to temperate coastal waters. In Australia, it occurs in two distinct and geographically separate populations – one on the east coast, the other on the west coast. The east coast population is critically endangered. The conservation status of the west coast population is vulnerable.

Sharks in the east coast population have been reported from all the eastern states but are mostly encountered from southern Queensland down the NSW coast. Along that section of coast there are several sites where the species forms aggregations that are thought to be important for mating and pupping.

Despite being widely protected, the species has been slow to recover from the slaughter it endured in the 20th century. It continues to be incidental bycatch in some fisheries and is also caught in nets set across beaches to protect swimmers, particularly along east coast beaches.

However, these continued threats aren’t enough to explain why grey nurse numbers haven’t bounced back since the species became protected. The main reason why is the species’ unusual reproductive physiology, which sees the females produce no more than one pup per year. Grey nurse shark reproduction is governed by a strategy known as intrauterine cannibalism, which means that ultimately females give birth to no more than two live young at a time.

Each female has two uteri in which a number of eggs are produced and from which baby sharks hatch. However, the strongest of these hatchlings eats the others meaning that only one pup can ever survive in each uterus.

Because the females only reproduce every second year it means that, on average, each produces only one pup a year.

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This species has a large cube-shaped transparent ‘bell’ – within which most of its organs are contained. Up to 15 long tentacles trail from each of the four corners of the lower edge of this firm jelly-like mass and each of these tentacles is up to 3m long and covered in many thousands of stinging cells called nematocysts.

Each of these cells is like a tiny spring-loaded hypodermic syringe that fires when touched, releasing a powerful venom designed to rapidly kill fast-swimming fish that happen to pass too close. Dead prey is then reeled into the jellyfish’s mouth by the tentacles.

Although it’s now known that box jellyfish are certainly able to swim against currents and control the direction in which they move by pulsing their bell, it’s not enough to pursue prey, which is why they need such fast-acting venom designed to stop vertebrates in their tracks.

If a person comes into contact with enough stinging cells of a box jellyfish, they will die within just a few minutes unless an antivenom can be administered. Survivors of box jellyfish stings usually bear lifelong physical scars from the encounter, at the sites where the stinging cells came into contact with them.

To avoid being stung in Australia it’s best to stay out of northern Australia’s coastal waters during stinger season, which is November to May. This is when adult jellyfish return from their lives in open ocean waters to breed near coastal river mouths and mangroves.

To protect swimmers, some beaches have nets that keep box jellyfish away. Special suits made of a material that can’t be penetrated by box jellyfish nematocysts are another protective option for swimmers.

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It’s usually quite an easy snake to identify with the back of its head and upper side of its body a glossy black, contrasted by a light-pink to bright-red underside. It is venomous and potentially deadly to people and several people every year are bitten in Australia by this species. But there has never been a recorded death from a red-bellied black snake in Australia.

These reptiles are accomplished swimmers and will even hunt in the water. In fact, they’re usually found not far from water, where they can hunt for their favoured prey – frogs. The much-publicised decline in frogs during recent decades could also be having implications for red-bellied black snake numbers. The species is also threatened by feral cats, poisonous introduced cane toads and urban development.

The red-bellied black is normally a placid species and will usually move away if it hears you coming, although if it’s cornered or feels threatened it will behave aggressively. You’re particularly likely to encounter one during the spring mating season when males will travel widely looking for females and will fight other males for mating rights.

Females give birth to live young – up to about 18 at a time – and groups of pregnant females are known to associate together in a shared nest at night. It’s not been confirmed why they do this, but a possible reason is protection from predators.

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Their stocky bodies don’t look as if they could move fast, but when they sense potential prey close by they react with lightning speed to inflict a highly venomous bite. No other venomous Australian snake strikes as fast.

As well as having that characteristic short stumpy body shape, adders also have a distinctive arrow-shaped head, narrow neck, and a thin tail with a curved tip that they shake around near their mouth like a worm to lure potential prey close.

This species, the common death adder, is one of seven known species of death adders occurring in Australia. It’s found in all mainland states and territories in a wide variety of habitats – from rainforest, open woodland and scrubland to coastal heathland. It prefers locations with a lot of leaf litter or forest debris in which it can hide away.

The venom of all death adders is potentially fatal to humans and, before an antivenom was developed in the late 1950s, more than half of people bitten would die. Last century there were at least five recorded human deaths attributed to death adders. There have been none this century, so far.

Death adders are threatened by a loss of habitat, but more of a threat is the introduced and highly invasive cane toad. Young death adders are eaten by these toads. And adult death adders are fatally poisoned by the toxic glands in cane toad skin when they eat these amphibians.

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There are two species of these marine fish found in Australian waters – the reef stonefish (S. verrucosa) and estuary stonefish (S. horrida). The reef species is recognised as the “world’s most venomous fish”, capable of killing an adult within an hour of being stung.

Being tropical creatures, stonefish are found in the northern half of Australia, in shallow waters in coastal areas. Their highly developed camouflage is all about their mode of capturing prey. They are what’s known as sit-and-wait, or ambush, predators, which can hide without moving for long periods of time until an unsuspecting fish or crustacean passes too close. Then they will move with lightning-fast reflexes to snatch and swallow prey. They have large mouths that open widely and particularly powerful jaws, and together these two features usually allow them to swallow any prey whole.

The venom in stonefish is not for use against prey, but instead against their own potential predators. It’s contained in a series of long spines along the back, each with two glands at the base that pump venom up along a hollow duct in each spine.

People are stung by these fish mostly on the feet when they come across them accidentally while walking across reef flats or in rocky areas. Although many people are believed to have died from stonefish stings on islands throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans, no one in Australia has been known to die from one since European settlement. Fast and efficient first aid has usually been the reason why and since the late 1950s an antivenom has been available for use against stonefish toxin.

A sting is extremely painful straight away; intended to be an immediate warning to would-be predators to leave these fish alone. Anyone stung will also find it quickly hard to breathe. It can cause cardiac arrest, convulsions, and paralysis.  

Because of the risk, it’s always recommended that anyone walking on reefs in northern Australia wears sturdy shoes and if they’re stung to immediately seek medical advice.

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In fact, it’ so well suited to swimming that it’s almost lost the ability to move on land. Although the species lives in the open ocean, far from coasts and reefs, individuals are sometimes found stranded on beaches after storms.

No other reptile – on land or in water – has such a wide distribution as the yellow-bellied sea snake. It’s found in tropical and subtropical waters from Africa’s east coast to the west coast of the Americas. In Australia, it occurs in coastal waters off the mainland north from Sydney right around to Perth.

It’s one of about 36 sea snake species known from Australian waters and is easily identified, being distinctively black on the upper surface and bright yellow underneath.

Seas snakes are stealth predators that quietly stalk then seize their fish prey. But they also – with seemingly little effort apart from a lunge forward or a sideways swipe of the head – capture fish that gather beneath their motionless bodies as they lie on the water’s surface. The fish are apparently deceived by the snake’s shape into thinking it’s some sort of lifeless log they can shelter beneath!

Sometimes large rafts containing hundreds of yellow-bellied sea snakes are found floating on calm water. It’s not known whether these are deliberate or accidental aggregations created by prevailing winds and water currents.

Like most sea snakes, this species is highly venomous although, up until 2018, when a young deckhand on a prawn trawler working in waters off the Northern Territory was fatally bitten, no one had been killed by a sea snake  bite in Australia for 80 years.

Like all reptiles, sea snakes need to breath air, although they can remain submerged for up to two hours between breaths. As well as having an elongated single lung to breathe air, like their land-based relatives, sea snakes also ‘breathe’ through cutaneous respiration: oxygen dissolved in sea water diffuses across the snake’s skin into its blood and then the waste product carbon dioxide diffuses out in the other direction.

Inward-opening nostril valves stop air entering the sea snake’s lung while it’s underwater. And excess salt accumulated from sea water is excreted by a special gland under the tongue.

Like most sea snakes the yellow-bellied sea snake bears live young – up to 6 at a time, each just over 2cm long.

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It’s the smallest of the three as a fully grown adult but, most experts agree, the most dangerous to people. That’s because of its preferred habitat and its well-documented hostile behavioural traits. The common name bull shark comes from both its strong stocky appearance and aggressive nature. It’s found in tropical and subtropical waters worldwide and tends to occur in the same areas where people also frequent ­­– inshore coastal waters, particularly around estuaries and river mouths.

Worldwide it’s thought to have been responsible for about a quarter of the human deaths caused by unprovoked shark attacks since detailed records began.

In Australia, it occurs around much of the coastline north from Sydney, up the east coast, across the Top End and down the west coast to as far south as Perth. It’s able to tolerate freshwater better than any other shark species: it can remain in freshwater for long periods of time and has even been known to travel hundreds of kilometres up into the freshwater of tidal rivers, including the Amazon, in South America and the Mississippi in North America.

In fact, female bull sharks often give birth near river mouths and the young will remain there for several years if food is available.

This tolerance of freshwater is made possible by many remarkable physiologic adaptations; notably special glands and kidney functions that help their bodies retain salt while they remain in freshwater for extended periods.

Bull sharks don’t begin to breed until they are about eight years old and females give birth to live pups, up to about 13 at a time.

As for all sharks the world over, the bull shark is under pressure from overexploitation by people. They are killed for the lucrative but largely illegal shark-fin trade and often die as bycatch in fishing nets. Because of their preference for inshore habitats, coastal pollution is also a growing problem for the species.  

Related: Bull sharks: fact from fiction

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To put things into perspective, the coastal taipan is considered to have the third most toxic venom of any of the world’s land snakes, but what contributes to its reputation as being more dangerous than its inland cousin is that it’s found in areas where more people are likely to come across it.  

It’s a tropical and sub-tropical species that occurs in coastal habitats along northern Western Australia and the Northern Territory, right along the Queensland coast and down as far as the northern New South Wales town of Grafton. It lives in a range of vegetated habitats from monsoon forest and dry sclerophyll woodlands to open grasslands. It does particularly well in sugarcane fields, where it thrives on introduced rodents.

This is a huge snake species – at least in terms of length. In fact, it’s Australian longest venomous snake. Although it’s rarely seen longer than 2m, the species can grow to well over 3m in length, particularly males, which are slightly larger than females.

Coastal trapians are mostly a day-active predators that rely on their sharp eyesight to locate prey, but in very warm conditions they will also hunt at night.

The word taipan comes from the name used for these snakes by the Wik Mungkan people of the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, in Far North Queensland.

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That “world’s most venomous snake” label still holds true today, but the inland taipan can’t be considered the most deadly snake because, fortunately, there has been no recorded human death caused by the species. The reason why is undoubtedly because it’s rarely encountered by people: having a very remote and limited distribution, it’s restricted to the far south-west corner of Queensland and far north-east of South Australia.

Out in this very remote, semi-arid environment the inland taipan hunts across the cracking clays and loamy soils of the outback floodplains of the Channel country. Its fortunes are strongly linked to those of the long-haired rat (Rattus villosissimus), a native Australian rodent found in the same habitat. In good times, after rains, numbers of the rat boom, which creates plenty of prey for the taipan and, as a result, its numbers also rise. In times of extended drought, numbers of both species fall.

Most snakes that kill using venom will strike their prey then move away to avoid being injured as they wait for their victim to die. But the potent venom of the inland taipan is so fast-acting that it can afford to hang on to its prey after striking it.

Inland taipans are daytime predators that mostly hunt in the cool of the early morning – a behavioural adaptation to their extreme environment. When conditions become too hot these snakes head underground where they shelter in the burrows of digging mammals. The olive-brown colour of the inland taipan darkens in the winter and is lighter in colour in the summer. It’s another adaptation to the environmental extremes of where the species lives: the dark winter colour absorbs more heat from the sun, when temperatures are cooler and the lighter colour in summer tends to reflect, rather than absorb solar energy.

Related: Australia’s 10 most dangerous snakes

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Being top-order predators – at the pinnacle of marine food chains – adult great whites aren’t threatened by any other marine animals. They do, however, face great risk from humans. They die as bycatch on longlines set by professional fishers. They’re targeted, caught and killed for the illegal shark-fin trade and hunted for sport. Great whites also die in nets set across coastal beaches to protect swimmers. And being top-order predators, they’re prone to poisoning by heavy metals and other pollutants that accumulate in marine food chains.

Most fish are ectothermic – ‘cold-blooded’ – meaning their body temperature varies with that of the environment. But great whites, like all members of the family Lamnidae, have a specialised blood system that allows them to capture and retain heat generated by muscle activity. This means they can maintain a body temperature higher than the surrounding water – a huge advantage when hunting in cold water because it allows the sharks to respond and move quickly. It’s this, combined with highly-developed senses, that make them such supreme predators. They have particularly good senses of smell (being able to detect a single blood drop from far away), hearing, vision, electroreception, taste and touch.

Found in temperate and subtropical waters worldwide, including off the coasts of the southern two-thirds of Australia, the great white shark is highly migratory: individuals have been tracked annually swimming thousands of kilometres.

Related: How to survive a shark encounter

The wide-ranging distribution of great white sharks makes it difficult to fully assess the species’ population numbers but scientists believe they’ve declined by as much as 70 per cent during recent decades. The species is listed as vulnerable on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species – just one step up from endangered. Great white sharks are now protected by law in the waters of most countries where they occur, including Australia.

Female great white sharks don’t become sexually mature until they’re about 16 years old and about five metres long. They produce live pups, about 10 at a time, every alternate year at the most.

Although great white sharks have been responsible for many human fatalities, it’s thought many fatal bites inflicted by this species on people are mistakes. These sharks are inquisitive and believed to be highly intelligent. They’ll often lunge, mouth and retreat from anything they become interested in and that means humans they might come across in the water. Unfortunately, these fish have such large jaws, filled with razor-sharp teeth – up to 300 in three rows – that a test bite is inevitably fatal.

Related: Ultimate guide to Australian sharks

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But numbats, which are spectacularly coloured with red-grey fur marked by black-and-white bands, are diurnal – day active – and spend their nights sleeping in dens in tree hollows or burrows dug in the ground. They come out once termites – their main food – become active as the day warms up, at about mid-morning.

Numbats are so unusual they’re categorized in a family on their own. Their closest living relatives are native carnivorous marsupials, such as the quolls and Tasmanian devil. The now-extinct Tasmanian tiger, the thylacine, was also in that marsupial group.  

Female numbats give birth to up to four babies at a time and like all marsupials they’re born tiny, furless and extremely underdeveloped. They spend their first months attached to teats in their mother’s pouch, which compared to most other marsupials is very rudimentary.

When the joeys become too big for their mother to carry, she digs a burrow, insulates it with barks and leaves, and leaves them there during the day while she leaves to forage for termites, returning to feed them at night.

A numbat needs to eat about 20,000 termites a day and laps up these insects using a long sticky tongue specially adapted for the purpose. At about 10cm, it’s almost half as long as a numbat’s body.

Birds of prey, which are visual hunters, are the main natural predators of adult numbats. But numbat stripes – a form of camouflage known as disruptive camouflage – make them hard to see in the scrubland and woodland habitats where they live. Joeys and sometimes adults are also taken by pythons, goannas, and chuditch (a marsupial carnivore). But the biggest threat to this stunning little marsupial is predation by introduced feral foxes and cats.

Numbats originally occurred right across southern Australia with populations in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, and the Northern Territory. But their numbers, decimated by foxes and cats, dropped so low late last century that the species came close to extinction twice. Now only two natural populations survive, both in WA. The species has also been reintroduced elsewhere in WA, as well as behind feral predator-proof fences in SA and NSW.

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Orange-bellied parrots face a variety of pressures including predation by feral foxes and cats, and disease. But perhaps the species’ biggest threat is the loss and modification of its habitat near where it breeds, particularly the drainage of wetlands for grazing and the clearing of saltmarsh for agriculture and industrial and urban development.

The species’ migratory lifestyle, which is very unusual for a parrot anywhere in the world, makes it particularly vulnerable to these pressures. The orange-bellied parrot breeds only Tasmania’s south-west coast, where it feeds on the seeds of button grass and nests in tree hollows in forest dominated by a type of eucalypt endemic to Tasmania known as Smithton peppermint.

After breeding, orange-bellied parrots fly across Bass Strait to south-east mainland Australia, where they overwinter in coastal Victoria and South Australia.

Now that the species’ population has become so small, it also faces added pressures placed on its survival caused by in-breeding.

As work continues to protect and restore orange-bellied parrot habitat in both Tasmania and on mainland Australia, and to reduce feral fox and cat predators, a successful breeding program underway in zoos has been trying to create an insurance population that can hopefully be used to one day rebuild the species in the wild.

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They sit at the entrance of these burrows and face inwards, using them like echo chambers to amplify their calls to attract females, which are strong fliers.  After mating, the females stay underground to lay their eggs in special sections of the burrows and, in an unusually maternalistic act for insects, guard them from  predators until they hatch.

G. pluvialis is a native Australian species that occurs naturally along the east coast, most noticeably around Sydney and Brisbane. G. australis, another species native to Australia’s east coast, has a more southerly distribution and is often heard in Melbourne and Tasmanian gardens. Since at least the 1990s both have also been been heard in gardens around Perth, where it’s thought they may have been introduced in fresh garden products brought in from the country’s east.

Australia also has several introduced species of Gryllotalpa that have become pests. Because they eat plant roots, they are capable of causing severe damage to garden lawns. But not all species are strict herbivores. Many are omnivores that also prey on underground worms and beetle larvae.

Mole crickets are related to grasshoppers and locusts, as well as regular crickets that live above ground. And, just like these leaping and hopping relatives, they produce their sound through stridulation – by rubbing a row of ‘teeth’ on one wing across a ridge (known as a scraper) on the other.

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The pig-nosed turtle is able to absorb oxygen from water across multiple papillae – fleshy skin bumps – in its throat. But, like all other turtles, it also needs to breath air and its strange nasal apparatus allows it to do that while the rest of its body remains submerged, hidden from potential predators.

Because of this it’s able to spends almost its entire life in the water. Not surprisingly it’s adapted in many other ways to an aquatic lifestyle, particularly in it strong and agile swimming capabilities. These are aided by flippers, like those seen more often in marine rather than freshwater turtles.

The strange-looking fleshy nose also has another function: it’s a sensory organ that helps the pig-nosed turtle locate food in murky water.

In Australia, this turtle species is found only in the Northern Territory, notably in slow-flowing streams and still-water lagoons of the drainage systems of the East Alligator, South Alligator, Daly and Victoria Rivers. It also occurs in New Guinea and West Papua.

The pig-nosed turtle is an ancient species; the only survivor of a family that first appeared on Earth about 140 million years ago, well before the dinosaurs went extinct. It’s unusually large for a living freshwater turtle species, with a huge shell that can can grow to 70cm in length and is covered in leathery skin, rather than the hard scale-like scutes that overlay the shells of other turtles.

It’s not known how many of these turtles survive in Australia but introduced water buffalo are potentially a major threat. These trample the nests of pig-nosed turtles, which are located on riverbanks above the water level. Buffalos also disturb vegetation along the water courses where these turtles live, contributing to siltation.

The post Pig-nosed turtle appeared first on Australian Geographic.

In the wild, ‘budgies’ – as they’re often called – live right across mainland Australia, except for the far south-west and south-east and far north of the Northern Territory. They are seen particularly in inland areas and are nomadic, following food. But they are also migratory, moving northwards across the continent during cooler months and south when the weather warms. Wild budgies are never far from water and early European explorers were known to follow them to locate a life-saving drink in arid Australia.

Budgies mate for life and usually live in small flocks of up to a hundred. But this is a typical ‘boom-bust’ species. When conditions are good – lots of rain leading to lots of grass seed – wild budgies breed quickly, their numbers skyrocket and huge flocks containing thousands of individuals can be seen in the Australian outback. These massive groups of small birds fly in unison, wheeling and turning as if they’re one huge organism. It’s a clever ‘safety-in-numbers’ adaptation that confuses the species’ main predators, which are eagles, falcons and other birds of prey.

Wild budgies always look very much the same, with feathers of bright yellow and green, blue cheek spots and wings marked with fine splashes of black. But in captivity, breeding has led to this species developing hundreds of plumage patterns and colour combinations, ranging from mottled shades of blue and even purple to pure white and yellow.

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