When I arrived in Australia in 1954, I knew all about Australia’s best known marsupial, the kangaroo, but had no idea that there were other marsupials equally interesting in their own way. I discovered this only when I cut sugar cane in Mossman in far North Queensland.

Once upon a time, sugarcane fires lit the Queensland Australia skies throughout the cane-cutting season. The cane was burnt to remove the dry leaves to make cutting easier, especially when the cane was still cut by hand. Today, this practice has been discontinued, and mechanical harvesters have replaced the manual cane cutter. To watch a cane fire, was a sight to behold, especially with the wind behind it, thirty-meter high flames were nothing unusual. Unfortunately, this spectacle had also a more ominous side to it. Many small animals, which found food and shelter in the cane fell victim to the fire if they were not fast enough to escape. They were, in the main, predominately snakes, rats and bandicoots. The latter is the animal I’m writing about.

It is highly likely, I guess, that very few people outside Australia have heard about this marsupial, the cousin of our better known and national icon, the Kangaroo, and much less ever seen one. Seeing them is not easy, because they are nocturnal and start to come out at dusk from their hiding places in search of food. The diet of the Bandicoot is, in the main, insects, grubs and worms, but they also eat some roots, fungi, and berries when in season. They move over the ground sniffling and snuffling as they go, and find insects by smelling them. They also have the ability to detect worms and grubs under the soil and quickly dig down with their narrow front feet. The front feet have three toes with long curving claws, so the holes they dig are narrow and pointed at the bottom, and the narrow snout fits neatly into the hole to get the worm or grub at the bottom of the hole. They live a solitary life, nest alone and spend the day hidden in a nest, hollow log or just under bushes.

The only time they tolerate the company of males is, when in season, solely to mate, after that event the male is no longer welcome. The lifespan of a bandicoot is only about three years. When females are about three months old they start breeding, and this will be a continuous process from then on, to the end of their days. They are still suckling their young in the pouch while the next litter grows in the womb.

I can vividly remember when I first encountered this small, but interesting little marsupial - mistakenly taking it for an oversized rat. I was cutting sugarcane in Mossman in far North Queensland in the late 1950s, when we burnt off a paddock of sugarcane in the late afternoon, which was adjacent to a field that lay fallow. As the fire raged, a drama took also place on the ground, as well as in the air. I exclaimed, “Look at all those big rats escaping the fire!”

My Boss smiled, “Those big ones are not rats, they are bandicoots.”

“They are what? I asked. This was my very first introduction to the word and the animal it represents. However, I have since then learnt more about this animal as well as encountering them many times. Of course, for many bandicoots and rats that escaped the inferno into the fallow field, it was not the culmination of a lucky break. A lot of them fell prey to the many hawks that circled above, eager for a meal. The hawks had literally a field day with gourmet food.

I couldn’t help thinking of the English proverb, in reverse order, From the fire into the frying pan - it is indeed a cruel world out there.

Bandicoot is the common name for any of 23 species of marsupials found in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. The Bandicoot ranges in length from 15 to 56 cm (6” to 22”) depending on the species. They look something like a cross between a rat and a rabbit. The colour of the fur ranges from grey, to brown and golden brown. I was told by canefarmers that the early European settlers called them bandicoots because they look like a pig-rat, or pandi-kokku of southern India, and the name has stuck. For the members of the group which have long rabbit-like ears, we use the name the aboriginals gave them - bilby.

I will restrict myself in this story to the bandicoot I’m familiar with, the short-nosed northern brown bandicoot (Isodon macrourus) that is heavier built, has a shorter nose and smaller ears than the long-nosed one (Perameles nasuta) that is lighter built and has longer ears. The long-nosed bandicoots live in areas that are more open and grassy, while the short-nosed prefers more wooded areas. Fully grown, they are about 250 mm (10”) long. 

As coastal cities are expanding, and bushland is lost, the bandicoot is squeezed out of their habitat. I was fortunate enough to live for many years, not among the gumtrees, as the well-known Australian folk song goes, but among the bandicoots in North Queensland. They are generally considered useful little critters especially in sugarcane where they dig for the very damaging cane grub.

We lived for seven years at a place called White Rock, just south of Cairns. We had tall mountains as a backdrop, and our house was adjacent to a little creek, bush and sugarcane. It was the ideal habitat of bandicoots - and many less desirable creatures. We had the pleasure of getting acquainted with one that came at dusk for a long time to the bottom of our steps and the kids fed it with small bits of meat. This was very unusual, to come so close to humans, as they are normally very shy. We found, as intriguing as this little marsupial is, it also had a downside, if one lived in a country area. Wherever, there were bandicoots, there were always snakes around, as bandicoots are part of their food chain. But a more worrisome aspect was, they carried the deadly scrub tick, which, dropped off their host onto the lawn after it had its fill of blood. From there, it will get onto domestic animals such as dogs and cats with dire consequences. It is said that bandicoots are immune to the tick poison. We lost two dogs to tick paralysis, despite the vet administrating a very expensive antivenin, which was fairly new in the 1960s. Besides being extremely expensive, the death resulting from tick poisoning is an agonising one.

At nighttime, we always knew when bandicoots were paying us a visit. Their squeaky grunts could be heard all night. And if males fought with each other, there were prolonged squeaky grunts. In the morning, I would find to my chagrin, their instantly recognizable visiting cards that they left behind - the numerous holes in the lawn, which could prove very annoying to any proud owner of a well-groomed lawn.

Lets delve a bit deeper into the inner workings of this interesting little marsupial. Bandicoots have the shortest known pregnancy of any mammal - only twelve and a half days. The half-day has some significance. The female mates at night and the young are born in the daytime in the security of the nest. As with all marsupials, their young are very small and undeveloped, with no fur and unable to see, yet they are still able to find their way into the pouch. In the case of the bandicoot, the young are only about one centimetre long. But one of the most interesting aspects is that the pouch of the bandicoot opens backwards, and inside the pouch are eight teats and there are usually three or four young. By comparison, the Kangaroo, which has only one young, has two teats and the pouch opens upwards. Each newborn bandicoot attaches itself to one of the small teats in the pouch, which then swells, ensuring that the young stay there.

I pondered for long time, as to why the pouch would open backwards, and came to the following conclusion. The bandicoot digs holes with their shorter front legs in search of food, and if the pouch opened the other way, it would fill up with soil and smother the young.

What do you think? I’m convinced that the designer of the bandicoot, was wearing his thinking cap when he invented this fascinating little animal.

- Werner Schmidlin
Yorkeys Knob, Queensland, Australia.