Rufous hare-wallaby

Rufous Hare kangaroo ( Lagorchestes hirsutus ) Drawing by John Gould

The Rufous Hare kangaroo ( Lagorchestes hirsutus ), also called Mala, a bag species from the family of kangaroos is ( Macropodidae ).

Features

Rufous hare kangaroos are among the smallest kangaroos: they reach a body length 31-39 cm, a tail length from 25 to 38 centimeters and a weight from 0.8 to 1.7 kilograms. Her thick fur is gray brown on the top, the underside is lighter. Named giving feature is the long, auburn hair at the back. The hind legs are substantially longer than the front, as in most kangaroos. The head is relatively small, the ears, however, are long.

Dissemination and lifestyle

The original habitat of the Rufous Hare - Kangaroos comprised around 25 percent of Australia, so they lived in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and northwestern South Australia. Today, they no longer occur on the Australian mainland, the only inventories living on the Bernier and Dorre Islands off the coast of Western Australia. Their original habitat is dry, covered with spiny head grasses grasslands.

Rufous hare kangaroos are nocturnal animals that sleep during the day in burrows. With dusk they come out of their hiding places and begin feeding. They are solitary and live normally avoid contact with conspecifics. Their diet consists of grasses, herbs and seeds, and sometimes fruits. Like all kangaroos they have a multi-chambered stomach, in order to exploit the indigestible plant food better.

Endangering

With the settlement of Australia by Europeans, the decline in populations of the Rufous Hare kangaroos has begun. The reasons for this lie in the changes of the habitat: the practice of Aborigines to cultivate smaller areas annually by burning, ensured thanks to the different growth phases of the plants for sufficient cover and food. With the expulsion of the Aborigines, this practice has been discontinued, instead it was more common to huge bush fires that decimated the stocks. Other reasons for the decline are competition for food by the new arrivals rabbits and predation by foxes which also entrained.

In the 1990s, the last stocks disappeared on the mainland, a population in the Tanamiwüste was wiped out by a bushfire. Since there are free-living, only the stocks on the Bernier and Dorre Island. Some animals are bred in captivity, a reintroduction program was to Trimouille Iceland off the northwest coast of Australia instead. Now live on Trimouille Iceland around 120 animals, the population size on the Bernier and Dorre Island is not known, estimates from the 1990s amounted to 4300-6700 animals. The IUCN lists the species as "endangered" ( vulnerable ).