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Today on animal fact files we're talking about numbats. Subscribe for more cute animals, and thank you to the J bird TM for today's request. Numbats are kind of weird. Their name makes it sound like they’re flying mammals, but they aren’t bats. They look like and are also known as banded anteaters, but they don’t regularly eat ants. They’re also marsupials, but they don’t have a pouch for their babies to hang out in. Still, there’s one thing that’s for certain, and that’s that these animals are adorable - they’re also endangered.

It’s believed that numbats are currently populating about 1% of their former range. Previously, numbats could be found throughout most of southern Australia; today they’re limited to two isolated areas in the southwest corner of the continent. Part of their limitation comes from habitat availability. Numbats need areas, such as fallen logs, where they can hide from predators, and they also need access to termites.

Numbats live in eucalyptus forests and spend most of their time on the ground. While many marsupials are nocturnal, numbats are active during the day because of their diet. Numbats almost exclusively eat termites, and, though they have sharp claws, numbats aren’t able to dig termites deep out of their homes; it’s not like numbats are all that big - they average just over a pound (450 grams) in weight and just over a foot (30.5 centimeters) in length including their bushy tails - so numbats have to eat during the day when termites are active moving around much closer to the surface and more readily found with a sensitive numbat nose. Numbats eat with a long, sticky tongue - and this could be a contributing factor as to why they’re called anteaters - it’s quite similar to how anteaters eat! But numbats only eat ants by happenstance. If an ant just happens to be in the area when a numbat gets to licking, then the ant will be eaten. Their sticky tongues are also why numbats inadvertently eat dirt.

Numbats don’t really chew their food and thus their teeth are more like pegs in their mouth, which could explain why they back down from pretty much any fight. When up against a predator, a numbat will flee to a nearby burrow; they never stray too far from one. Once in the burrow the numbat will spread its legs and wedge itself in place in an attempt to make it more difficult to remove from the hole. If they’re successful in this act throughout their lives, numbats can live to be five years old in the wild and double that in captivity - though they probably have a lot fewer predators in captivity…

As we mentioned earlier, numbats are weird marsupials. Instead of a pouch, mother numbats have special hairs surrounding their four teats which baby numbats will cling to for their first few months of life. Numbats generally have four babies at a time and the mothers will carry them around until they’re too big and she has to kick them off. When this happens, she’ll place them in a den to keep them safe until they’re old enough to venture out on their own which happens at about eleven months of age. Once they set out, they find their own territory and remain solitary until they’re ready to breed.

Females begin breeding in their first year, males take an extra year before they reproduce. The breeding season is from December to February, when it’s summertime in Australia. Male numbats produce a pungent, red, oily substance which they’ll rub over everything to indicate their readiness to mate. If given the opportunity, they may mate with multiple females, and at the end of the breeding season they’ll be on their own again leaving the ladies to do all the child rearing.

Predators, specifically non-native species, are one of the main threats to numbat populations. Birds of prey, foxes, snakes, goannas, and feral cats all reduce numbat numbers, but population control of invasive species and numbat breeding programs have helped to converse populations of the endangered numbats.

For more facts on numbats, check out the links in the description. Give a thumbs up if you learned something new today, and thank you for watching Animal Fact Files.