The female Koala has one young a year. The baby Koala sucks on two nipples in its mum's backward-opening pouch for seven months. It rides on mum's back and is weaned at 1 year onto eucalyptus leaves.

A wombat is a hairy marsupial mammal. It can weigh up to 39 kg and be approximately 1 meter long. They have a short 25mm tail and stumpy legs.  A wombat likes to live alone.. A Wombat even has its own feeding ground. A Wombat lives in hilly forest country and it likes to burrow underground. A burrow can be as long as 20 meters. Sometimes burrows can interconnect, so while Wombats are loners they do show some community spirit. Wombats are nocturnal animals which eat grasses, roots and herbs after dark. There are three species of Wombats.

Kangaroos

Motorists must keep a keen eye out for animals that can quickly bound and leap their way across the landscape - kangaroos and wallabies.  There are 47 species of kangaroos (which are marsupials) in Australia but the gray and red kangaroos are the most common and best known. Red kangaroos, the largest species, can grow as long as 1.5 metres, have a one-metre tail and stand two metres tall.  All kangaroos rely on their long, powerful hind legs and feet for hopping and leaping, which, of course, is their main mode of transport. They use their long, thick tails for balancing themselves and put most of their weight on their large fourth toe.  Gray kangaroos can clear more than nine metres in a single bound. But one recorded leap was an astounding 13.5 metres. These animals can reach speeds of 48 kilometres an hour.  Perhaps the best-known feature of the kangaroo is its pouch, which it uses for child rearing. Kangaroos usually have one baby, or joey, a year. A joey is extremely small when it's born - about 2 centimetres long.  Immediately after birth, it crawls up its mother's body and into the pouch. Inside, it attaches itself to one of four teats, which then enlarges to hold the joey in place. The joey stays there for a few weeks after which it starts to spend more and more time outside the pouch. After seven to 10 months, it leaves the pouch.

Wallabies are virtually the same as kangaroos, but smaller -they're between 45 and 105 centimetres long.  There are 11 species of brush wallabies in Australia, the most common being the red-necked wallaby, which inhabits the brush lands of southeastern Australia and Tasmania.  The pretty-faced wallaby, as its name implies, is quite attractive with its distinctive cheek marks. It's found in the open woods of coastal eastern Australia.  There are six species of rock wallabies that live- surprise - among rocks and usually near water. They are also very agile over rocky terrain.  Then, there are three species of nail-tailed wallabies that are named for a horny growth on the tip of their tail. These wallabies rotate their forelimbs while they're hopping and because of this are often called organ-grinders. Two of the three species are endangered.

Dingoes have short hair, usually with a yellowish or reddish tinge to it. They have bushy tails and pointy ears. They're about 1.2 metres long, including a 30 centimetre tail, and stand about 60 centimetres tall at the shoulder.

The exact origin of dingoes in Australia is unknown, but experts believe they were introduced to Australia by immigrating aboriginal people from Asia between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago.

Dingoes used to hunt kangaroos, but when the Europeans began to settle in Australia they targeted easier prey like sheep and poultry kept by farmers. These days, dingoes eat insects, rodents and rabbits. Dingoes hunt alone, in pairs or as a family group, but seldom in packs.

Female dingoes give birth to between four and eight babies at a time, and the male and female cooperate to take care of the young, who stay with their parents for one to three years.

Dingoes are bold in the wild, but they can be captured and tamed. In fact, some Aboriginal people in Australia tame and keep dingoes as hunting companions.

Echidnas

Adult echidnas capture ants and termites with a long sticky tongue and use their strong front claws to break into termite and ant nests.  They have no teeth and grind their food on horny plates in the mouth.  They are often seen in the breeding season in late spring, when they may form 'trains' as several males follow end to end after a female.  The female has a shallow pouch into which a single sticky egg is laid. Milk glands under the skin nourish the single young once hatched. It stays in the pouch when first born, but as it grows and develops spines, the mother leaves the young echidna in a den scraped out under rocks or a stump when she is feeding.  While it is capable of protecting themselves effectively against predators, echidnas like other animals rely on the existence of suitable habitat for their survival.

If there's one animal that looks like a genetic engineering experiment gone wrong, it's the platypus. These semi-aquatic animals have a bill and webbed feet that make them look like a duck. But they're actually mammals that are covered with thick, woolly fur.  Platypus bills are more like an elongated snout covered with moist, leathery skin. The bill is usually about six centimetres long and five centimetres wide. The snout's sensitive nerve endings help playtpuses detect and dig up their prey of insects, worms and shellfish on river bottoms.  Another unique feature of the platypus is their reproduction process. Even though they're mammals, platypuses lay eggs. Females usually lay two eggs at a time in a nest made of weeds, leaves and grass at the end of a long dug-out burrow in the banks of streams and rivers.  Adult males have a hollow spur on the inner side of one of their hind legs that can squirt a toxic fluid when the animal feels threatened.  Platypuses are secretive animals and are seldom seen. They live in rivers and streams in Tasmania and southern and eastern Australia and are excellent swimmers and divers. They have small eyes and no external ears, but still have a keen sense of sight and hearing. Hunting platypuses is against the law in Australia.

Tasmanian devils are mainly scavengers that feed on dead wallabies and sheep. They also eat the larvae of some beetles and have been known to attack poultry.  The coat is black and brown, and there is a whitish breast mark. They also have large jaws and strong teeth. Named for their devilish expression and husky snarl, Tasmanian devils grow to between 50 and 80 centimetres long. They have a 23 to 30 centimetre long bushy tail. Female Tasmanian devils give birth to three or four young, which remain in the pouch for about five months. They were once common all throughout Australia but because farmers believed it killed their livestock and poultry, Tasmanian Devils were exterminated there. Now, they only live on the island of Tasmania in remote rocky areas.

The Bush Rat has typical yellow, rodent incisors in both upper and lower jaws. It has a soft, long furred coat, brownish above and often with a russet tinge across the back of its neck. The belly is a soft grey colour.  Bush Rats are absent on the Mornington Peninsula and west of Port Phillip Bay but occur in the Melbourne area, mainly to the north and east and including the tall forests.  They live in a wide range of habitats, from coastal scrub to woodland and rainforest where they may burrow in soft soil, or use rock crevices and fallen timber for shelter.  Their food varies seasonally and includes fruit, seeds, other plant tissues and some invertebrates such as arthropods.  The peak of the breeding season is from November to January with an average litter size of four to eight young.

An inhabitant of tall wet forests and rainforests of eastern Victoria,this robust possum is usually a uniform grey in colour. The prominent bushy prehensile tail tapers to a naked tip.  As with the Common Brushtail Possum found in Melbourne suburbs, the underside of the tail is also naked, allowing it to get a good grip on branches, as it climbs among the canopy.  It spends a large proportion of its time on the ground, feeding on leaves and shrubs, fruit and fungi.  Nesting in tree hollows females raise one or two young, which ride on the mother's back after they become too large to ride in the pouch.

This species, the Faunal Emblem of Victoria, is the only mammal found solely in Victoria.  It is a small possum, about the size of a Sugar Glider, but more robust and lacking any gliding membrane. Its coat is grey-brown above and creamy-yellow below.  It was found in Westernport at the time of early settlement, but now it is confined mainly to tall forest areas north-east of Melbourne.  For many years it was thought to be extinct, but it was rediscovered near Marysville in 1961.  The diet is close to that of the Sugar Glider, but with more emphasis on plant exudates such as the gum from Silver Wattle Acacia dealbata trees. Tall forests of E.regnans, E.nitens and E.delecatensis fulfil its critical requirements, which include abundant nest sites in old hollow trees and stags, an Acacia understorey, and abundant loose bark, with the dual purpose of providing food (invertebrates) and shelter. These requirements are closely related to particular stages of forest growth, particularly old growth.  Logging and habitat destruction threaten the continued existence of this species. 

This shy species is not easily seen, but nevertheless occurs over much of Victoria.  Sugar Gliders live in groups of up to 12 individuals and have a complicated social system and range of calls. Most females breed each year between August and October.  Food includes acacia gum, invertebrates, eucalypt sap and pollen.  They are most abundant in forest with stringybark box, ironbark and gum eucalypts with larger wattle species. Tree hollows and fissures in Mountain Ash forests are used for nests.  The species appears to be secure in Victoria, due to conservation in parks, reserves, and roadside areas.

This small insectivorous bat is a rich chocolate colour and weighs about nine grams.  It is commonly found in a wide range of habitats including from Melbourne suburbs to Mountain Ash forest.  It feeds on flying insects which it captures on the wing and relies heavily on echo-sounding for navigation and feeding, making sounds often outside the human hearing range.  Naked young of these placental mammals are born from late spring to early summer, and fed by the mother for several months.

Bioinformatics