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The red-necked wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus) is a medium-sized marsupial macropod, common in the more temperate and fertile parts of eastern Australia, including Tasmania.

Description

Red-necked wallabies are distinguished by their black nose and paws, white stripe on the upper lip, and grizzled medium grey coat with a reddish wash across the shoulders. They can weigh 13.80 to 18.60 kilograms (30.4 to 41.0 lb) and attain a head-body length of 90 centimetres (35 in), although males are generally bigger than females.

Distribution and habitat

Joey in pouch

Two male adults fighting

Red-necked wallabies are found in coastal scrub and sclerophyll forest throughout coastal and highland eastern Australia, from Rockhampton, Queensland to the South Australian border; in Tasmania and on many of the Bass Strait islands (although it is unclear which of the islands have native populations as opposed to introduced ones); as well as in the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. In Tasmania and coastal Queensland, their numbers have expanded over the past 30 years because of a reduction in hunting pressure and the partial clearing of forest to result in a mosaic of pastures where wallabies can feed at night, alongside bushland where they can shelter by day. For reasons not altogether clear, it is less common in Victoria.

Behaviour

Red-necked wallabies are mainly solitary but will gather together when there’s an abundance of resources such as food, water or shelter. When they do gather in groups, they have a social hierarchy similar to other wallaby species. Red-necked wallabies are mainly crepuscular. They spend most of the daytime resting in vegetation.

A female’s estrous lasts 32 days. During courting, the female first licks the male’s neck. The male will then rub his cheek against the female’s. Then the male and female will fight briefly, standing upright like two males. After that they finally mate. A couple will stay together for one day before separating. A female bears one offspring at a time; young stay in the pouch for about 280 days,^[3] after which females and their offspring stay together for only a month. However, females may stay in the home range of their mothers for life while males leave at two years old.

Subspecies

There are three subspecies.

• M. r. banksianus (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825) – Red-necked wallaby
• M. r. rufogriseus (Desmarest, 1817) - Bennett's wallaby
• M. r. fruticus (Ogilby, 1838)

The Tasmanian form, Macropus rufogriseus rufogriseus, usually known as Bennett's wallaby is smaller (as island species often are), has longer, shaggier fur, and breeds in the late summer, mostly between February and April. They have adapted to living in proximity to humans and can be found grazing on lawns in the fringes of Hobart and other urban areas.

Juvenile Macropus rufogriseus rufogriseus

The mainland form, Macropus rufogriseus banksianus, breeds all year round. Interestingly, captive animals maintain their breeding schedules; Tasmanian females that become pregnant out of their normal season delaying birth until summer, which can be anything up to eight months later.

Introduction to other countries

A population of albino Bennett's wallabies live on Bruny Island

There is a small colony of red-necked wallabies on the island of Inchconnachan, Loch Lomond in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. This was founded in 1975 with two pairs taken from Whipsnade Zoo, and had risen to 26 individuals by 1993.^[4] There is also a group of wallabies living wild on the Isle of Man who are the descendants of a pair that escaped from a wildlife park on the island in the 1970s.^[5]

There were at one time small colonies in England: in the Peak District, in Cumbria, and in the Ashdown Forest, in East Sussex. These were established c.1900, and are now believed to be locally extinct, although unconfirmed sightings are still reported from time to time.

In France, in the southern part of the Forest of Rambouillet, 50 km (31 mi) west from Paris, there is a wild group of around 30 Bennett's Wallabies. This population has been present since the seventies, when some individuals escaped from the zoological park of Émancé after a storm.^[6]

In 1870, several wallabies were transported from Tasmania to Christchurch, New Zealand. Two females and one male from this stock were later released about Te Waimate, the property of Waimate's first European settler. The year 1874 saw them freed in the Hunters Hills, where over the years their population has dramatically increased. Wallabies are now resident on approximately 350,000 ha of terrain centered upon the Hunters Hills, including the Two Thumb Ranges, the Kirkliston Range and The Grampians. They are declared an animal pest in the Canterbury Region and land occupiers must contain the wallabies within specified areas.^[7]

References

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