Billabong's Native Animals
Here at Billabong Sanctuary we have over 100 species of mammals and reptiles, and more birds than you can imagine!
Many of these Aussie animals live here permanently. But our natural billabong also encourages a huge variety of native wildlife to visit.
Here's just a small selection of some of our more popular residents. Be sure to check out Education Billabong for lots more facts and figures about Australian native animals
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Our Estuarine Crocodiles
Meet Snapper, she's a typical adult female Estuarine crocodile, more accurately known as an Indo-Pacific crocodile. She weighs about 90kg and is about 2.5 metres long.
When Snapper builds her nest, around Christmas time, she scrapes up a huge mound of leaves and creates a massive egg incubator. In the centre, she lays between 50 and 80 eggs, and guards them with her life!
Riley is our longest, yet youngest breeding male, and can be a bit of a handful when we clean out his enclosure! He's a staggering 4.4 metres long and weighs about 500kg. The clue to his big size lies in his name.
He has spent most of his years in a heated pool, being fed every day and without all the stresses and strains of a wild crocodile. He hasn't had to fight for females or wrestle his prey…. he's big because he's had the life of Riley.
Meet our young koalas, Maddy and Kev.
They were born at the Sanctuary in February 2005 and have since won everyone's hearts! Koalas are found up and down the eastern seaboard of the Australian mainland, in areas that support their only food source: gum leaves!
There is a stark difference in size between those koalas found up here in north Queensland , and those living down in Victoria . Kev would expect to reach about 6.5kg in adulthood, but down south, monster koalas of 15kg are not uncommon!
Yarrabah is our Male Southern Cassowary.
If you've never heard of a Cassowary before you're not alone. Sadly, there's not many of these remarkable birds left in the wild.
Cassowaries are placed in a group of birds called the Ratites, all flightless birds that live in the southern hemisphere. Can you name the other members in this group?
For hundreds of thousands of years, Cassowaries have been eating rainforest fruits and distributing seeds, enabling the rainforest to prosper. Over evolutionary time, the Cassowary and the rainforest have developed a level of dependence on each other for survival. Yarrabah and his kind now have a symbiotic relationship with many of the rainforest plant species, and are largely responsible for the continued existence of these remarkable ecosystems. Help the Cassowary and we help the rainforest!
Meet Nugget, our Juvenile Common Wombat.
Born in December 2004, Nugget has grown up fast and is now old enough to have his own pad. When Nugget was born, like all wombat joeys, he was about the size of a jellybean and looked nothing like a wombat at all. His ears and eyes were closed off, he was completely naked and had no back legs. But remarkably, he found his way into his Mum's pouch, attached himself to one of her teats, and stayed there for about 5 months.
Common wombats are the most widely distributed of the three wombat species found in Australia . The other two species are the Southern Hairy-nosed and the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat. Did you know that the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat is the most endangered marsupial on the planet? There's only 35 breeding females left in a population of around one hundred! Help us to conserve the last remaining few.
Amazing, friendly staff and plenty of room for the animals to roam – Simon and Nicola, UK |