The Red-Tailed Phascogale is a small tree-dwelling, native and nocturnal marsupial. Once widespread across southern Australia, it now only survives between Narrogin, Lake Grace and Kojonup, making the Shire of Katanning one of the last locations to find this beauty.

The Red-Tailed Phascogale is recognisable by its distinctive tail – rust coloured at the top with a black and bushy end. It is a carnivorous marsupial that lives off insects, spiders and small birds and measures only 10cm in the body and weighs just 60g (about the weight of a chicken egg). It moves at blink-and-you-miss-it speeds, leaping up to two metres in a single bound!

Their preferred habitat is dense, mature forests of Wandoo (Eucalyptus wandoo) and Sheoak (Allocasuarina huegeliana), which provide them with tree hollows, however with clearing we are seeing Phasocogales move to areas with rough, barked trees and healthy canopy cover for protection.

They’re territorial and the females will come back to the same nesting sites year after year, so it’s vital that we create suitable habitat for nesting.

You can download and print off a pdf colouring-in and a dot-to-dot of our furry friend the phascogale by clicking on the links below.