The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority is highlighting the importance of tree hollows for wildlife in its 2025 Year of the Tree Hollow community awareness campaign.
This month features the fast and furious Yellow-footed Antechinus (Antechinus flavipes), one of the Goulburn Broken catchment’s smallest marsupials.
Goulburn Broken CMA Project Officer, Janice Mentiplay-Smith, said antechinus were members of the dasyurid family, whose relatives include the Tasmanian devil, brush-tailed phascogale, quoll and dunnart.
“Antechinus look very much like house mice but this is where the similarities stop,” Ms Mentiplay-Smith said.
“The easiest way to differentiate between an antechinus and the pest house mouse is by looking at their face and head. An antechinus has a pointy, long and narrow snout, unlike a mouse, which has a round head and nose.
“Antechinus are also larger than a house mouse; its body length is up to 165 millimetres and its tail is about the same length as its body. They also have a furry white ring around their eyes, large crinkly ears, yellowish legs and bellies and yellow feet.”
Another tell-tale sign between a house mouse and an antechinus is its smell. Mice and rats create a musky smell, antechinus have no odour.
Male antechinus die soon after mating due to stress and lack of food and nutrients, a strategy thought to be nature’s way of ensuring a continuously refreshed gene pool and sufficient resources available for the next generation.
Ms Mentiplay-Smith said the Yellow-footed Antechinus foraged during the day to feast on insects, spiders, cockroaches, lizards, small birds and eggs, the occasional flower and nectar and even a house-mouse.
“Antechinus forage furiously amongst the sticks, leaves, branches and logs that comprise a healthy ground storey,” she said.
“Tree hollows are vital for the Yellow-footed Antechinus which need deep hollows with small entrances to hide from predators, for shelter and to rest. Large old trees provide hollow habitat and regularly shed dead leaves, branches, twigs and bark.
“A study into the factors affecting the presence of the Yellow-footed Antechinus concluded that a messy ground layer of organic litter as well as the density of hollow-bearing trees and rock cover in a structurally complex forest system were the main habitat features affecting antechinus’ ability to inhabit a region.
“Therefore, when timber is removed from roadsides, either to clean up or for firewood, this directly impacts the Yellow-footed Antechinus and other native fauna that rely upon this habitat.”
Read more in the Goulburn Broken CMA’s Mammal Book, a 58-page booklet featuring beautiful photographs – including the Yellow-footed Antechinus on the front cover - and informative text: The Mammal Book - GB CMA - Goulburn Broken CMA
The Year of the Tree Hollow is supported by the Victorian Government through the Our Catchments Our Communities stewardship program.
Yellow-footed Antechinus by Chris Tzaros.