Dama wallaby, Darma wallaby, Tammar wallaby, Dama wallaby, Darma wallaby
The tammar wallaby (Notamacropus eugenii ), also known as the dama wallaby or darma wallaby, is a small macropod native to South and Western Australia. Though its geographical range has been severely reduced since European colonisation, the tammar wallaby remains common within its reduced range and is listed as "Least Concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It has been introduced to New Zealand and reintroduced to some areas of Australia where it had been previously eradicated. Skull variations differentiate between tammar wallabies from Western Australia, Kangaroo Island, and mainland South Australia, making them distinct population groups.
The tammar wallaby is among the smallest of the wallabies in the genus Notamacropus. Its coat colour is largely grey. The tammar wallaby has several notable adaptations, including the ability to retain energy while hopping, colour vision, and the ability to drink seawater. A nocturnal species, it spends the nighttime in grassland habitat and the daytime in shrubland. It is also very gregarious and has a seasonal, promiscuous mating pattern. A female tammar wallaby can nurse a joey in her pouch while keeping an embryo in her uterus. The tammar wallaby is a model species for research on marsupials, and on mammals in general. Its genome was sequenced in 2011.
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NocturnalNocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal",...
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HerbivoreA herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example, foliage, for the main component of its die...
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FolivoreIn zoology, a folivore is a herbivore that specializes in eating leaves. Mature leaves contain a high proportion of hard-to-digest cellulose, less ...
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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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JumpingJumping (saltation) can be distinguished from running, galloping, and other gaits where the entire body is temporarily airborne by the relatively l...
Among animals, viviparity is the development of the embryo inside the body of the parent. The term 'viviparity' and its adjective form 'viviparous'...
Altricial 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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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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Dominance hierarchyA dominance hierarchy (formerly and colloquially called a pecking order) is a type of social hierarchy that arises when members of animal social gr...
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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 withLike its family member the kangaroo, Tammar wallabies are marsupials (pouched mammals) and belong to the family of macropods ("large foot"). Basically, a wallaby is a macropod that is not big enough to be classed as a kangaroo. There is no clear distinction between these animals but in general, wallabies are smaller and stockier than kangaroos. Males have much larger forelimbs, and their claws are wider than those of females. Tammar wallabies have gray to yellow bellies and red legs. As with all marsupials, the female has a pouch in front of her abdomen where she nurses her young.
Tammar wallabies inhabit islands off the western and south Australian coasts. They live in regions of dense vegetation with bushes and low trees, in thickets and at the outskirts of forests.
Tammar wallabies are very social animals. They socialize, mate and feed in groups that have a hierarchical structure. These groups are called "mobs". More dominant individuals are usually males, and this dominance is determined by means of aggressive wrestling encounters, the victor being the highest ranking animal. The territory of a mob may be as large as 100 hectares and the peripheral areas may partly be shared with other mobs. Mobs consist of all ages and both genders and usually number up to 50 individuals. Tammar wallabies are nocturnal, resting during the day in low scrub, beginning to be active at dusk; they leave the scrub after dark and go back to it before dawn.
The Tammar wallaby is a herbivore and its diet consists mainly of grass.
Tammar wallabies are polygynous, the dominant male usually controlling access to his females by first mating with and then guarding the females from other subordinate males. These wallabies are seasonal breeders. The gestation period is for 25 to 28 days. A single joey is born in late January until March. The joey stays in the pouch after birth. At around 200 days it starts to leave the pouch to eat grass. It still suckles, in a more forceful manner but not so often. By 250 days it has left the pouch, and at 300–350 days (or 10 to 11 months) it is fully weaned. A female joey is sexually mature at 9 months old and a male at 2 years old.
Habitat destruction and feral predators are the major threats to these animals. They are shot for commercial purposes and persecuted as an agricultural pest due to the damage they cause to cereal crops, and because they destroy fences, eat livestock food, and drink stock water.
According to IUCN Red List , the overall population of Tammar wallabies is estimated at 10,000-50,000 mature individuals. They are listed as least concern (LC), due to its abundant and presumably stable population.
Social animals are those animals that interact highly with other animals, usually of their own species (conspecifics), to the point of having a rec...