“It is sometimes referred to as a ‘swamp wallaby’, however this is not because it lives in swamps but has more to do with its apparently quite characteristically strong odour,” Goulburn Broken CMA project officer Janice Mentiplay-Smith said.
The solitary black-tailed wallaby is often heard before being seen. The fat thump of the wallaby’s bounce as it manoeuvres though the low shrubbery — compared to the spring of the eastern grey kangaroo as it hops across open ground — is an audible indicator that this shy little marsupial is not far away, albeit keeping a low profile among the understorey.
“This little wallaby possesses specific genetic, reproductive, dental and behavioural characteristics that make it different to other wallabies, and is the only living member of the genus Wallabia,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.
“In contrast to kangaroos and other wallabies that graze on grass, the black-tailed wallaby is a ‘generalist browser’. It eats shrubs, small plants, fungi, sedges, bark and algae. Accordingly, its teeth are shaped differently to those of other wallabies.”
The female black-tailed wallaby is polyoestrous, meaning she can overlap two pregnancies by gestating both an embryo and a foetus at the same time.
She will ovulate, mate and conceive a new embryo one to two days before the birth of her full-term joey. This means she can be continuously pregnant throughout her reproductive life.
A black-tailed wallaby joey weighs just one gram at birth after a 33- to 38-day gestation and spends the next eight or nine months in its mother’s pouch.
Read more about the black-tailed wallaby and other mammal species in the Goulburn Broken catchment in The Mammal Book, a 58-page booklet featuring beautiful photos and informative text.
To view a copy, go to: https://www.gbcma.vic.gov.au/our-region/land_and_biodiversity/resources_publications/the-mammal-book
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