AY Honors/Marsupials/Answer Key
Quolls (genus Dasyurus) are carnivorous marsupials, native to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Adults are between 25 and 75 cm long, with hairy tails about 20-35 cm long. Females have six to eight nipples and develop a pouch—which opens towards the tail—only during the breeding season, when they are rearing young. Quolls live both in forests and in open valley land. Though primarily ground-dwelling, they have developed secondary arboreal characteristics. Their molars and canines are strongly developed.
Eastern Quoll
The eastern quoll—also known as the native cat—has two color phases—ginger-brown or black, both with white spots on the body.
Eastern quolls once occured on mainland Australia, with the last sighting occuring in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse in the early 1960s. They are now considered extinct on the mainlnad, although some recent sightings in the New England region of northern New South Wales suggest that the species may still survive.
Taxonomy
Within the genus Dasyurus, the following species exist:
- Dasyurus albopunctatus — New Guinean Quoll, New Guinea
- Dasyurus geoffroii — Chuditch or Western Quoll, western Australia
- Dasyurus hallucatus — Northern Quoll, northern Australia
- Dasyurus maculatus — Spotted Quoll (Tiger Quoll), eastern Australia
- Dasyurus spartacus — Bronze Quoll, New Guinea
- Dasyurus viverrinus — Eastern Quoll, Tasmania
