These are Tammy and Tex the spotted-tailed quolls at Peel Zoo. Spotted-tailed quolls are found in the eastern part of the Australian mainland and across Tasmania where they share a range with the Tasmanian devil.
The two spotted-tailed quolls at Peel Zoo were my first proper quolls on my quolliday. They were being very friendly and photogenic while i was there and the morning sun made for some spectacular haloed fur and whiskers.
This is not just one quoll – this was my quolliday where i Saw All The Quolls*.
I might be wrong about this but for the time being, Perth is the only city you can go to see all four species of Australian quoll on display. (There’s two more kinds of quoll in New Guinea.) On the last day of my midyear holidays (13 August 2012), i decided to do just that – and try to get photographs of all four species to boot. Although they’re an hour and a bit’s drive apart, Peel Zoo has the two out-of-state species (spotted-tailed and eastern) and Perth Zoo has the two species of quolls found in Western Australia (the chuditch from the south-west and the northern quoll from the Kimberley). I photographed three out of the four species but i did sight all four of them. If not for autofocus having trouble finding its way through the bars of the eastern quoll’s enclosure, it would have been four for four. It disappointed me on the day but it’s a good reason to try to do it again. 🙂
Along for the quolliday ride will be all the other dasyurids i took snaps of plus a couple of guests.
But mainly quolls. Everything needs more quolls.
This is a tiger quoll or spotted-tailed quoll getting ready to leap off a branch. Quolls are all adept climbers and perfectly at home in trees.
This is a spotted-tailed quoll. This fellow was doing bog laps around his enclosure and jumping up on the log to sniff the air. There’s a lady quoll one enclosure over. ‘Nuff said.
This is a spotted-tailed quoll yawning. Quoll yawns are the best yawns.