illustration Sue Stranger
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Scientific name:
Dasyurus viverrinus
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Common names:
Eastern quoll, native cat, quoll
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Average head-body length:
37 cm (male); 34 cm (female)
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Average tail length:
24 cm (male); 22 cm (female)
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Average weight:
1.3 kg (male); 0.9 kg (female)
The eastern quoll once ranged over much of south-eastern Australia, but is now all but extinct on the mainland. It is still common in Tasmania, where it lives in open forest, heath, scrubland and cultivated land. If the foxes recently introduced to Tasmania become established, the security of the quoll population, already threatened by continuing habitat loss, would be further reduced.
Factors that have helped to make the eastern quoll scarce on the mainland include clearing and degradation of habitat; predation and competition by foxes, cats and wild dogs; and perhaps an epidemic of unknown cause in the early 1900s.
The eastern quoll has a delicate build, white-spotted black or fawn fur, and a plain tail, sometimes with a pale tip.
It hunts alone by night and feeds on small animals, grass, soft fruit and carrion. Females, with a home range of only a few hundred metres, share dens with other males and females, except when they are rearing young. Males rarely share dens with other males, and often move up to a kilometre a night between dens.
After mating between mid-May and early June, the female gives birth to as many as 30 tiny young (6 mm long) but she only has teats for six, so the others perish. By the end of October the pups are weaned and must fend for themselves.
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