Banded anteater, Walpurti, Marsupial anteater, Noombat
The numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus) is an insectivorous marsupial that was once widespread across southern Australia, but is now restricted to several small colonies in Western Australia. It is therefore considered an endangered species and protected by conservation programs.
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DiurnalDiurnal animals are active during the daytime, with a period of sleeping or other inactivity at night. The timing of activity by an animal depends ...
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InsectivoresAn insectivore is a carnivorous plant or animal that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which also refers to the human practice of e...
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CarnivoreA carnivore meaning 'meat eater' is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of a...
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
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AltricialAltricial animals are those species whose newly hatched or born young are relatively immobile. They lack hair or down, are not able to obtain food ...
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BurrowingA burrow is a hole or tunnel excavated into the ground by an animal to create a space suitable for habitation, temporary refuge, or as a byproduct ...
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FossorialA fossorial animal is one adapted to digging which lives primarily but not solely, underground. Some examples are badgers, naked mole-rats, clams, ...
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Island endemicIsland endemic animals are found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island. Animals or organisms that are indigenous to a place ar...
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TerritorialA territory is a sociographical area that which an animal consistently defends against the conspecific competition (or, occasionally, against anima...
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ViviparousAmong animals, viviparity is the development of the embryo inside the body of the parent. The term 'viviparity' and its adjective form 'viviparous'...
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TorporTorpor is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually marked by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. Torpor enables...
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PolygynyPolygyny is a mating system in which one male lives and mates with multiple females but each female only mates with a single male.
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SolitaryNo
Not a migrantAnimals that do not make seasonal movements and stay in their native home ranges all year round are called not migrants or residents.
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starts withThe numbat is a small, distinctively-striped animal, with a finely pointed muzzle and a prominent, bushy tail about the same length as its body. Color varies considerably, from soft grey to reddish-brown, often with an area of brick red on the upper back, and always with a conspicuous black stripe running from the tip of the muzzle through the eye to the base of the small, round-tipped ear. Between four and eleven white stripes cross the animal's hindquarters, which gradually become fainter towards the midback. The underside is cream or light grey, while the tail is covered with long, grey hair flecked with white. Numbats have five toes on the fore feet and four on the hind feet. Like many ant- or termite-eating animals, numbats have a long and narrow tongue coated with sticky saliva produced by large submandibular glands. A further adaptation to the diet is the presence of numerous ridges along the soft palate, which apparently help to scrape termites off the tongue so they can be swallowed. Numbats also possess a sternal scent gland, which may be used for marking their territories.
Currently, numbats are represented by 2 surviving populations in southwestern Australia, namely, Perup and Dryandra. In addition, there are 6 self-sustaining re-introduced populations of this species, 4 of which are found in Western Australia, one in South Australia, and another one in New South Wales. The preferred habitat of numbats is eucalyptus forest and woodland with an abundance of wandoo or jarrah trees. The presence of hollow wandoo logs on the ground is an important life condition for these animals since these logs provide them with reliable shelter and a constant source of food (they eat termites, found on wandoo trees).
Numbats are generally solitary animals, socializing only when raising their offspring and during the mating season when a breeding pair lives in a nest. They are territorial and an individual male or female establishes a territory of up to 1.5 square km (370 acres) early in life, and defends it from others of the same sex. The numbat generally remains within that territory from then on; male and female territories overlap, and in the breeding season, males will venture outside their normal home ranges to find mates. Numbats have relatively powerful claws but they are not strong enough to get at termites inside their concrete-like mounds, and so must wait until the termites are active. They use a well-developed sense of smell to locate the shallow and unfortified underground galleries that termites construct between the nest and their feeding sites; these are usually only a short distance below the surface of the soil, and vulnerable to the numbat's digging claws. Numbats synchronize their day with termite activity, which is temperature dependent: in winter, they feed from midmorning to midafternoon; in summer, they rise earlier, take shelter during the heat of the day, and feed again in the late afternoon. Numbats are able to enter a state of torpor, which may last up to fifteen hours a day during the winter months. At night, they retreat to a nest, which can be in a log or tree hollow, or in a burrow, typically a narrow shaft that terminates in a spherical chamber lined with soft plant material: grass, leaves, flowers, and shredded bark. Numbats are not very vocal animals but they can growl, or make a repetitive 'tut' sound when disturbed.
Numbats are carnivorous (insectivorous) marsupials that mainly feed on termites. They also supplement their diet with predator ants, which are occasionally found when consuming termites.
Numbats have a polygynous mating system, where one male mates with multiple females. They breed in December-January. The gestation period lasts for 14 days, yielding 4 babies, which live attached to their mother's body for the first 6 months of their lives. And when young are so heavy and large, that the female cannot walk with them on her body, she removes the babies, after which they start living in a log or burrow, where the mother regularly visits them, continuing to protect and suckle her offspring, until they are 8-9 months old. They spend the following 2 months exploring the environment, coming out of their nest to eat termites, and experiencing their first encounters with predators. Finally, at 10-11 months old, young numbats are weaned from maternal milk. They leave their mother at 1 year old in order to find territories of their own, forage, and breed. Reproductive maturity is reached at 1 year of age in females and at 2 years old - in males.
One of the biggest threats to the population of these endangered animals is increased predation by cats, foxes, and other feral predators. Numbats are also exposed to changes in fire regimes. On the other hand, they are threatened by habitat destruction, leading to a reduction in a number of logs: these logs are key livelihood for numbats, providing them with shelters, where they can rest and hide from predators, as well as a constant source of food, since numbats mainly feed upon termites, which are abundant in these logs.
According to the IUCN Red List, the total population size of the numbat is probably less than 1,000 mature individuals. Currently, this species is classified as Endangered (EN) on the IUCN Red List, and its numbers today are decreasing.
Numbats play an important role in their local ecosystem. One numbat eats as many as 15,000-20,000 termites a day and thus controlls termite populations of the area.
