Southern marsupial moles live in the boarders of Western Australia, South Australia and in the Northern Territory. The environment they live in is very shrubby, rock filled and covered in sand. They also eat insect eggs, larvae and pupae. Also between five to ten are spotted every decade!
Structural Adaptations
These moles have claws on their front feet that act like spades or shovels.
It helps them do dig holes to live in and move around in.
They have a tubular body and a cone shaped head that improves their speed a lot when digging and burrowing underground. Southern Marsupial Moles also have webbed feet and the webbed feet help them to push sand behind themselves while they are digging. Also they have a pouch facing backwards for where their babies stay in until they are old enough to come out. They are 13-16cm long,
weigh 40-60g and they have no eyes or ears.
Southern marsupial moles live in the boarders of Western Australia, South Australia and in the Northern Territory. The environment they live in is very shrubby, rock filled and covered in sand. They also eat insect eggs, larvae and pupae. Also between five to ten are spotted every decade!
Structural Adaptations
These moles have claws on their front feet that act like spades or shovels.
It helps them do dig holes to live in and move around in.
They have a tubular body and a cone shaped head that improves their speed a lot when digging and burrowing underground. Southern Marsupial Moles also have webbed feet and the webbed feet help them to push sand behind themselves while they are digging. Also they have a pouch facing backwards for where their babies stay in until they are old enough to come out. They are 13-16cm long,
weigh 40-60g and they have no eyes or ears.
Behavioural Adaptations
This creature digs holes about 20-100cm below the surface to create tunnels and passages to move around in. They also dig holes to live in. Strangely, they spend almost all their life digging holes. Nobody yet knows why because they haven’t had much information on them, as they are very rare.
Also they push the soil or sand behind them as they dig so they can move swiftly under the ground.
Threats
Moles like these have a few threats.
Aboriginal People killed these animals for their silky, golden fur. Then they sold or traded the Southern Marsupial Moles fur to the Europeans and the Afghans. Feral cats, foxes and dingoes also hunted and ate them.
As you can see these extremely rare Southern Marsupial Moles are classified as ENDANGERED. We have to protect these animals and make sure we don’t lose them. This was my information report on SOUTHERN MARSUPIAL MOLES!
