Featured Animal: Pademelon

The pademelon is a small to medium sized marsupial found inhabiting the forests of Australia and a number of it's surrounding islands.The pademelon is most closely related to the wallaby and the kangaroo.

There are seven different species of pademelon found in the jungles of the far east, the population numbers of all seven pademelon species are declining primarily due to hunting and habitat loss.

The pademelon is a solitary and nocturnal animal meaning that the pademelon, spends the light daytime hours resting, and goes foraging for food during the cooler cover of night. The pademelon is most commonly found inhabiting coastal regions of Australia, Papua New Guinea and Tasmania.
The pademelon spends much of it's waking time, foraging for leaves, grasses, shoots, berries and herbs in it's dense jungle environment. Pademelons also commonly venture into shrublands where they have less cover to feast on the lush plants, if there are no predators around.

In many areas of forest inhabited by the pademelon, there are often no real predators around but habitat loss in the form of deforestation has caused the pademelon population numbers to decline. In other areas, pademelon are most commonly preyed upon by canines including foxes, dingos, domestic dogs and even the odd cat.

Those pademelon inhabiting the Tasmanian forests often have more of a variety of predators and are preyed upon by Tasmanian Devils, large snakes, large birds of prey such as eagles, and even by quolls.

The pademelon is a marsupial meaning that the female pademelon has a pouch on her belly where she nurses her young. After mating the infant pademelon will be born just 30 days later, when it has to make its own way into it's mother's pouch.

Baby pademelon then spend the next 6 months or so growing growing and developing inside the pouch and eventually begin to venture out into the outside world.