I led a research trip into the remote Kimberley Region of Western Australia to find out what I could about the Scaly-tailed Possum. The following text is an article I wrote and is published in Australian Geographic Oct-Dec 99, Issue 56. 

 

AS THE CHOPPER’S whirr faded into the distance I looked apprehensively past our collection of animal

traps, food, camping gear and study equipment to our surroundings in Western Australia’s Kimberley. Two volunteers — Liz Tasker and photographer Pavel German -and I had been dropped into the remote Mitchell Plateau, 600 kilometres south-west of Darwin, to find and study one of Australia’s most elusive and little-known mammals: the scaly-tailed possum. In a harshly beautiful landscape of gushing waterfalls and pockets of dense vegetation, I’d selected this site from the air because it had sandstone formations nearby and three different vegetation types, and from my initial research for my PhD at Northern Territory University, I knew this was where the possums might live. But it was a gamble — we might spend three fruitless weeks here without spying even one of these marsupials.

 

Our hopes rose quickly. On our second day, Pavel discovered fresh claw marks on a eucalypt trunk and scooped up some unusual possum droppings from its base. Each pellet was short, stubby and brown — like a brushtail possum scat — but with a nipple-like protrusion at one end, unlike any I’d seen before. It was like finding gold.

 

We anxiously set traps baited with jam, apples and a mix of honey, oats and peanut butter. And that night Liz yelled the words I wanted to hear: “Yes, it’s a scaly in the trap!” I bounced into the air, squealing with excitement. A healthy female, the possum had a big round head, small claws and rough paw pads, presumably to give the extra traction needed for climbing steep rock faces. Her ruler-length body tapered to a rough, scaly tail that provided excellent grip when she used it to dangle from tree branches.

 

After taking body measurements and tissue samples for genetic studies later, we fitted a radiocollar — supplied through Australian Geographic Society sponsorship — on the possum so we could follow her movements. In a few days we had four more possums sporting collars. Tracking five animals in 40°C heat was hard work, but our findings soon made the effort worthwhile. We discovered that the possums rested alone deep within rock crevices during the day and each had up to six such dens. Some changed lairs regularly, a tactic that may bamboozle predators and avoid lengthy return journeys from nightly foraging. The well-disguised hidey-holes offered excellent protection from monsoon rain, cyclones, fires, extreme heat —and us! One possum had me vigorously digging around spinifex for half an hour because the radio signal came from just under the ground and I thought a predator must have buried the collar. Finally my melting brain realised the animal had crawled to its shelter from a nearby cliff edge via an underground rock crevice.

 

After hours of stumbling about in stifling heat searching for possum retreats, my favourite part of each day was climbing down to the stream under an umbrella-like canopy of mangroves to meet Pavel and Liz, who’d have the billy on and the spuds roasting. We’d sit among the pandanus on mats of lush water plants, soaking in a natural spa of cool, bubbling water. Luckily, our bathing spot was safely away from the deeper, darker pools where large crocodiles lurked.

At night we’d perch on boulders as the moon drifted slowly upwards. Then the bush would awaken. Magnificent golden-backed tree-rats, quolls, rock-rats, golden bandicoots and monjons, the smallest of the rock-wallabies, all came into view during their nightly forays among the boulders. One night Liz watched our number-one possum climb a spindly 2-metre-high herb stalk to feed. “She was halfway up when the stem broke and with a thud, the silly thing fell to the ground on her back still holding it in her paws,” Liz recounted. “She wasn’t hurt and walked to the tip of the stalk and ate the tiny flowers and seeds.” We also saw scaly-tails eat the leaves of cocky apple and other trees.

 

On our last night, the bright green-and-red reflective tape on one of our collared males lit up like a Christmas tree in my red-filtered torchlight. Seemingly unaware of my presence, he crawled through a crack only a metre from me and was about to waddle past when he noticed my backpack sitting in his path. Pausing for a few long seconds beside me, he then retreated to the crack, turned and swiftly bounded out of sight. It was exhilarating to have one of these rare, wild creatures pass so close that I could have reached out and touched him.

 

Myfanwy’s research was sponsored by the Australian Geographic Society, Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Development of Tropical Savannas, Environment Australia, Australian Government Postgraduate Awards and Energy Resources Australia