Small marsupial on the street!

This is the last update before we leave tomorrow morning. Just one sleep!

We spotted this little animal on the way home from the park on Saturday. Nate and I immediately thought it was some kind of marsupial...being in Australia and all.

We got home and whipped out the Wildlife to Greater Brisbane (Thanks again, Penny and Peter!) and tried to give a name to this little creature.

We decided that it looked most like the Yellow-footed Antechinus or maybe the Brown Antechinus. Both of these species are quite rare within city limits because of competition with mice and rats in urban areas, and because of the vicious Felis catus.

Antechinuses reproduce only once a year, and the male yellow-footed antechinuses die after mating from the stress of it all. Hard to compete with the fecund house mouse!

If you haven't figured it out from the pictures, it turns out that our 'marsupial' is the lowly Mus musculus. We were really hoping it wasn't, but it makes more sense that we would see a mouse in the gutter of a busy street than a rare and threatened marsupial. Shoot! If only her snout was just a bit longer... and she had a pouch under there...

It's amazing how similar the antechinus and mouse look considering how distantly related they are! Science!

Next stop, California! Well, technically, our next stop is Aukland, THEN California, but let's not get picky.