Paper pun goals!

"I knew you were truffle when I walked in" is a magnificent title for a paper about baiting for mycophagous (fungi-eating🍄) mammals (like this long-nosed potoroo!)

The model was tested against the field estimates of an expert devil researcher*, with agreement in 95% of age estimates.

Personally, I view this as a win for both the model & my own field skills 🤓

* Me!

Integrating multiple field measurements in a Bayesian parallel regression framework to estimate Tasmanian devil age The Tasmanian devil is a carnivorous marsupial, endemic to Tasmania, that is threatened by a transmissionable cancer. This paper introduces a novel method to incorporate multiple measures of devil si....

Tasmanian Devil Average Birthday also seems like a good day to highlight a new paper from Dr Douglas Kerlin, which uses different field measures of devil tooth development & wear to estimate age -

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Happy Tasmanian Devil Average Birthday, to all those who celebrate! 🥳

Devils have an annual mating season, which goes from late Feb until late April. That means, on average, devil joeys are born on 1st April.

So if you wish a devil Happy Birthday today, you’ve got a good chance of being correct!

Quoll feet are also absolutely top tier!

Random Delightful Fact of the Day -

Eastern quolls go grey as they get older!

A juvenile (~6 mths old) on the L, & a 4 yr old on the R

(Worth noting that 4 yrs old is oooooold for an eastern quoll)

It's bizarre. I can think of at least 3 scientific publications that predict (i.e., model) the uncontrolled explosion of deer across Tas. None of them were referred to in the report. weirdddd

'Not anticipated': New survey shows deer population boom in Tasmania The first survey for feral deer in Tasmania in five years reveals an unanticipated increase of nearly 20,000 to the population.

“No anticipated” except by all of us that have been saying for ever that the #feral #deer management plan is pathetic. 🌎 #wildoz

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

'Not anticipated': New survey shows deer population boom in Tasmania The first survey for feral deer in Tasmania in five years reveals an unanticipated increase of nearly 20,000 to the population.

“Not anticipated”, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years…

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

Feral deer are a huuuuge problem in Tasmania that’s only getting worse. Legislation catching up with reality would be a good start - incredibly, they’re still a partly protected species…

The City of Platypuses!!

The measure for how excellent a city is should be how quickly you can see something wonderful.
It took less than an hour after arriving in #Hobart for @drdevildave.bsky.social and me to see a #platypus, which is of course the most wonderful thing there is. #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz

A dangerous(ly adorable) predator approaches…

Harry, why is your dog stealing quoll food!?

Should note that the devils can, & do, extract themselves from this situation perfectly well. There’s no denying them food…

A Tasmanian devil standing pensively outside a tube containing food. The tube is CLEARLY too small for the devil to fit into…

Oh wait, no it isn’t… The devil has comically managed to insert the entire front half of his body into the narrow tube. It looks like he is entering another dimension

As part of eastern quoll translocation work, we use supplementary feeding stations that are meant to exclude Tasmanian devils.

The devils disagree…

I am here for the Captain Quoll rebrand!!

Ecology needs a causal overhaul Ecology has yet to embrace causal inference, yet most questions in ecology are causal. Despite the common use of terms that imply causation, such as “shapes”, “drives”, or “impacts”, many studies shy...

I'm guessing this is probably very well worth the read! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

A marsupial pouch full of tiny, pink eastern quolls. Their distinctive spotted pelage is starting to become apparent

Quoll beans!!

These tiny eastern quolls are only around 5 weeks old, & just starting to get their spots

#GardensforWildlife members, here is a survey just for you! Your garden is the missing link in a new @utas.edu.au Honours research project. Honours student Millicent Biggs is studying how backyard gardens support #Tasmanian #wildlife. Start the survey here: lnkd.in/gChGeTAa

Please enjoy this antechinus sproinging* away

* technical term

Cryptic Kultarr: Integrative Taxonomy Reveals Unrecognized Species of Carnivorous Marsupial (Dasyuridae: Antechinomys) in Arid Australia Conservation is impossible if we have not described all of the species we aim to conserve. This paper reviews the taxonomy of the kultarr (Antechinomys laniger) a small arid-zone specialist native to....

The kultarr is officially three species!
So proud of this work and a big thanks to Australia's amazing museum network and my great supervisor team
@kennytravouillon.bsky.social
@reneecatullo.bsky.social
@planigale.bsky.social
bakerecologylab.wordpress.com

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Long-beaked echidnas? Yes please! A cartoon for people who cannot bear any more news about anything dreadful | First Dog on the Moon Let the echidna discourse begin!

Echidnas! Everyone loves echidnas. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

That’s a funky looking EQ - its vibe is all wrong!

A display of taxidermy of several species of Australian mammal, with a big green map of Australia.

A taxidermy eastern quoll. The map on its label suggests the quoll lives in Tasmania (where it still does live today) and the southeast of the mainland (where it became extinct)

You can date a display of Australian mammals by whether the distribution maps recognise recent extinctions. Eastern #quolls went extinct in mainland Australia in the 1960s, but they're still on this historic display at @hunterianglasgow.bsky.social Zoology Museum.
#taxidermy #extinction

Whoops, sorry - that wasn't meant to be the take-home! The captive-bred quolls did great, we just have to refine methods in terms of which individuals are released to help them with breeding. So a focus on juveniles & adults who have bred previously in future, which is exactly what we're doing ☺️

Busy start to #ICCB2025 - sharing @tasland.bsky.social ten year fauna camera data set - pre & post-fire at Five Rivers. Huge shout out to coauthors including @drdevildave.bsky.social & Jo Potts

This work was the result of a great collaboration between @tasland.bsky.social, @utas.edu.au, WWF Australia and the Tasmanian Quoll Conservation Program (made up in part by Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, Devils@Cradle, East Coast Nature World & Trowunna Wildlife Sanctuary)

A nesting box full of quolls, with both colour morphs (dark & fawn) represented.

Another interesting side finding was the first (that we know of) genetic confirmation of multiple paternity in eastern quolls, with multiple litters found to have been fathered by more than one male quoll!

Useful lessons to be learned from this for future translocations of this species, with a key one being around releasing reproductively naive adult quolls. They were able to survive well in the environment, but may not have been able to translate that to breeding success.

An adult male light-morph eastern quoll about to be released

However, genetic analysis of the next generation found no evidence that any of them had a captive-bred parent!

While we may have missed some juveniles in our sampling, this (at the least) indicates that the captive-bred quolls had lower breeding success than their wild counterparts