12 results for month: 09/2012
Leadbeater’s possum on the brink of extinction
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/leadbeaters-possum-on-the-brink.htm TIME IS RUNNING OUT for the once thought extinct Leadbeater's possum (gymnobelideus leadbeateri). The possum, named after taxidermist John Leadbeater, was first declared extinct in the 1950s but was given a second chance at survival when a colony was rediscovered in a forest in Marysville in the 1960s. So significant was the occasion that Victoria made the small marsupial its state faunal emblem. About 40 to 50 per cent of the Leadbeater's habitat was wiped out during the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, which devastated the Marysville community. Leadbeater possum ...
Captive breeding program for endangered Leadbeater’s possum
Dr Dan Harley talks to Ali Moore about Healesville Sanctuary's Leadbeater's possum breeding program http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/05/22/3508428.htm Dr Dan Harley has been working with the Leadbeater's Possum for more than 20 years. "They're in a lot of trouble at the moment and we're kind of really at crunch time in terms of saving this species," he says. They weigh less than an apple, they fit inside a coffee cup, but their baseball bat shaped tail is the Leadbeater's possum's most distinctive feature. "When they're running around at night it's held erect... when they feed it vibrates," says Dr Harley. The Healesville Sanctuary's ...