Southern marsupial mole

This unusual creature lives a highly secretive life underground.

Weighing between 40 and 70 grams, southern marsupial moles are rarely seen but sometimes surface after periods of rain. They live in dunes and other sandy areas, ‘swimming’ through the sand and backfilling their tunnels behind them.

Their diet consists of ants, beetles and larvae. The female mole has a backwards-facing pouch like the koala and wombat.

Known as itjaritjari to Aṉangu, the marsupial mole is an important ancestral creature. Minyma Itjaritjari is an ancestral being that lived in a cave in the side of Uluṟu, in the same valley as the Mala people. She was friendly with the Mala women and would often come out of her cave to watch the children play.