Numbat also called the banded anteater is marsupial mammal of the family Myrmecobiidae, of which it is the sole living representative.
They were formerly found across southern Australia from Western Australia across as far as northwestern New South Wales.
However, the range has declined significantly since the arrival of Europeans, and the species has survived only in several remnant populations in two small patches of land in the Dryandra Woodland and the Perup Nature Reserve, both in Western Australia.
Today, numbats are found only in areas of eucalypt forest, but they were once more widespread in other types of semiarid woodland, spinifex grassland, and in terrain dominated by sand dune.
The lifespan of the numbat is up to 5 years in the wild and up to 11 years in captivity.
Numbat has a squat body and a small pointed head with a very long snout; the head and body together are about 20 to 27 centimeters (roughly 8 to 11 inches) long, and there is a 13-20-cm (5-8-inch) bushy tail.
Its coat generally is reddish brown, becoming blacker toward the rump, and there are about seven or eight transverse white stripes on the body from behind the forelegs to the rump, where they are most clearly marked.
The teeth are small, and there are extra molars, giving a total number of 50–52 teeth. The tongue is long and sticky, and the forefeet are strong-clawed, for digging.
At night, the numbats seek shelter inside hollow logs, and during the day, numbats can avoid predators, especially birds and foxes, by staying hidden within the darkness of the logs.
During mating seasons, logs provide numbats an area for their nesting sites.
Most importantly, the heartwood of the majority of trees in eucalypt woodlands are eaten by termites, which are the base of the numbat’s diet.
Source ; http://justfunfacts.com/
- Numbats eat up to 20,000 termites each day. They catch the termites with their long, sticky tongues.
- Numbats are diurnal. They sleep during the night and are awake in the day. They are active when termites are active. In the winter, termites are active in the middle of the day when the sun warms the ground. In the summer, termites are active early in the morning and in the evening.
- Numbats have a good sense of smell. They can smell termites on the ground.
- These marsupials live in hollow logs or dig burrows under the ground.
