A Termite-Eating Marsupial Down to Roughly 1,000, Saved by Fox Control
The numbat is a small, striped, termite-eating marsupial — the faunal emblem of Western Australia and one of the continent's most distinctive mammals. Unusually among marsupials, it is strictly diurnal (active by day) and does not have a true pouch. Once widespread across the southern half of Australia, the numbat was reduced to two tiny remnant populations in Western Australia by the 1980s, driven to the brink primarily by predation from introduced red foxes and feral cats [Friend & Burbidge 2008]. The IUCN lists Myrmecobius fasciatus as Endangered, with a wild population estimated at fewer than 1,000 mature individuals [Woinarski & Burbidge 2016].
The numbat's partial recovery is one of the clearest demonstrations of the single most important fact in Australian mammal conservation: control introduced predators (especially foxes), and native mammals can recover; fail to, and they vanish.
Biology and identification
Myrmecobius fasciatus is small — 35–45 cm including the bushy tail, weighing 280–700 g [Cooper 2011]. It is unmistakable: a slender body with a reddish-brown coat marked by 4–11 white transverse stripes across the rump, a black eye-stripe, and a pointed snout. It is the only member of its family (Myrmecobiidae).
The numbat is a dietary specialist on termites — it eats up to 20,000 termites per day, located by smell and excavated from shallow galleries with its long, sticky tongue (it lacks the powerful digging claws of other termite-eaters and relies on termites being near the surface). This dependence on termites dictates its habitat (it needs termite-rich woodland) and its diurnal activity (it forages when termites are active near the surface, which is during the day).
It is one of the few marsupials without a true pouch — the four young attach to the mother's teats, sheltered only by surrounding hairs and her body, an unusually exposed arrangement. Numbats shelter at night in hollow logs and burrows, which protect against cold and some predators.
Habitat and range
Historically distributed across much of the southern half of Australia — from Western Australia across South Australia, the Northern Territory's southern fringe, and into western New South Wales [Friend & Burbidge 2008]. By the 1980s the species survived in just two small natural populations in southwestern Western Australia: Dryandra Woodland and Perup Nature Reserve.
Through reintroduction, numbats have since been re-established at several fenced (predator-proof) and intensively-fox-controlled sites in Western Australia, South Australia, and New South Wales — including Scotia Sanctuary and Mallee Cliffs (NSW, by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy) and other reserves. Numbats require eucalypt or wandoo woodland with abundant termites and hollow logs for shelter.
Conservation status
The numbat is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List [Woinarski & Burbidge 2016] and under Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. CITES does not list the species; international trade is not a threat. The wild population is estimated at fewer than 1,000 mature individuals across the natural and reintroduced sites.
The species is part of the broader story of Australia's catastrophic mammal extinction record — Australia has the worst modern mammal-extinction rate of any continent, with introduced predators (foxes and cats) the leading cause.
Threats
Predation by introduced red foxes and feral cats is the dominant threat and the cause of the historical range collapse. The numbat is diurnal, ground-dwelling, and small — and evolved without placental mammalian predators. The fox (introduced to Australia in the 1850s for hunting) and the feral cat are devastatingly effective predators of native mammals in this size class. The numbat's recovery in the 1980s–90s closely tracked the "Western Shield" fox-baiting program in Western Australia — when fox numbers were reduced by landscape-scale 1080 poison baiting, numbat numbers rose [Friend & Thomas 2003].
Habitat loss and fragmentation — clearing of woodland for agriculture across the historical range removed both the termite-rich habitat and the hollow-log shelters numbats depend on.
Cats remain a problem even where foxes are controlled — feral cat control is harder than fox control (cats are less reliably attracted to poison baits), so cat predation has become the limiting factor at some sites where foxes have been suppressed.
Fire regime changes — inappropriate fire can destroy the hollow logs numbats shelter in and alter termite availability.
Small population size — with fewer than 1,000 individuals in fragmented populations, the species is vulnerable to genetic and demographic stochasticity.
What is being done
- "Western Shield" — the Western Australian government's landscape-scale fox-baiting program, one of the largest predator-control programs in the world. Numbat recovery in WA is closely linked to this program's fox suppression.
- Predator-proof fenced reserves — the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and Arid Recovery operate large fenced areas (Scotia, Mallee Cliffs, others) free of foxes and cats, where reintroduced numbat populations thrive. These fenced "havens" are central to Australian mammal conservation generally.
- Perth Zoo numbat breeding program — a captive-breeding-and-release program that has produced numbats for reintroduction to predator-controlled sites for decades.
- Project Numbat — a Western Australian community conservation organization supporting numbat research, monitoring, and public awareness.
- Feral cat control research — because cats are now often the limiting predator where foxes are controlled, improved cat-control methods (baiting, exclusion, and the "felixer" grooming-trap technology) are an active research and deployment area.
How readers can help
- Support the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and Project Numbat. AWC operates the fenced predator-free havens central to numbat recovery; Project Numbat supports research and monitoring.
- Support feral-predator control programs. The single most important fact in Australian mammal conservation is that introduced-predator control works. Supporting fox- and cat-control programs (and the research into better cat control) is the highest-leverage action for numbats and dozens of other Australian native mammals.
- For Australian cat owners: keep cats contained (indoors or in a cat run), desex them, and never dump unwanted cats. Feral cats descended from domestic cats kill billions of native animals annually in Australia; responsible pet ownership reduces the feral-cat problem at its source.
- Visit Dryandra Woodland and Perth Zoo (Western Australia) — ecotourism and zoo visitation support the conservation programs and build the constituency for predator control.
- Support Australian biodiversity and predator-control policy. Australia's mammal-extinction crisis is driven overwhelmingly by introduced predators and habitat loss; policy and funding for landscape-scale predator control and habitat protection benefit the numbat and the broader threatened-mammal community (bilbies, bettongs, quolls, and many others facing the same threats).
Last verified: 2026-05-24 Conservation status: Endangered (IUCN Red List 2016 assessment); <1,000 mature individuals; faunal emblem of Western Australia.
References
- Cooper, C. E. (2011). Myrmecobius fasciatus (Dasyuromorphia: Myrmecobiidae). Mammalian Species 43(881): 129–140.
- Friend, J. A., & Thomas, N. D. (2003). Conservation of the numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus). In Predators with Pouches: The Biology of Carnivorous Marsupials, ed. M. Jones, C. Dickman & M. Archer. CSIRO Publishing.
- Friend, J. A., & Burbidge, A. A. (2008). Numbat Myrmecobius fasciatus. In The Mammals of Australia, 3rd ed., ed. S. Van Dyck & R. Strahan. Reed New Holland.
- Woinarski, J., & Burbidge, A. A. (2016). Myrmecobius fasciatus. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. e.T14222A21949380.