Toolache Wallaby: The most beautiful, elegant and agile of all wallabies

British naturalist Frederic Wood Jones, who spent many years in Australia, called Grey’s wallaby, also known as the toolache wallaby, “probably the most beautiful and elegant of all wallabies” in 1924. The high-contrast facial markings, the banded fur on the back and the overall fine gray tone of the coat were especially striking. According to Wood Jones, these features clearly distinguished the species from other wallabies. And he knew what he was talking about: he had studied the composition, structure and growth direction of the hair coat of various kangaroo species in detail and examined the functional and evolutionary reasons behind them.

The toolache wallaby’s conspicuous fur may undoubtedly have contributed to its rapid disappearance. Less than 85 years after Europeans arrived in South Australia, the species was already considered extinct in the wild. Wood Jones wrote in addition:

“As it is by far the most agile of all wallabies, hunting it was once a very popular sport and its beautiful pelts were marketed in large numbers in Melbourne showrooms.”

Wood Jones, 1924, pp. 244f.

In fact, the toolache wallaby was not only elegant, but also exceptionally fast and maneuverable—characteristics that made it a special challenge when hunting. The British ornithologist and animal painter John Gould described the impressive speed of the wallaby in 1863:

“I have never seen anything as nimble as this species: it does not seem to hurry until the dogs have come quite close, then like an antelope it springs away, first with a short jump and then with a long jump, leaving the dogs far behind. I have made twenty attempts in one day with four nimble dogs and not caught a single [Tier].”

Gould, 1863

For Gould, Grey’s wallaby was “one of the nimblest and most agile” kangaroos. But even this remarkable adaptation was not enough to permanently escape intensive hunting, constant persecution and habitat loss.

Toolache wallaby – fact sheet

alternative names	Toolach wallaby, Grey’s wallaby, Captain Grey’s kangaroo, Toolach, Monkeyface, Onetwo
scientific names	Notamacropus greyi, Macropus greyi, Halmaturus greyi, Halmaturus greyi i, Wallabia greyi, Notamacropus greyii, Protemnodon greyii
original range	Australia (South Australia & Victoria)
time of extinction	around 1940 (possibly as late as the 1970s)
causes of extinction	habitat loss, hunting, introduced red foxes
IUCN status	extinct

From the Pleistocene to the Colonial period: the range of Grey’s wallaby

The toolache wallaby was originally in Southeast of what is now the Australian state of South Australia native. Its documented range extended from Lake Albert south of Adelaide to the south coast and extended eastwards to the westernmost reaches of neighboring Victoria. However, zoologist Tim Flannery (1990) notes that there are no recent documented collections of this species in Victoria, which is why its historical occurrence there was long considered uncertain.

Fossil finds outside South Australia

Subfossil finds prove that Grey’s wallaby’s range has been significantly larger in the past was. During the late Pleistocene, i.e. around 14,000 to 20,000 years ago, the species also lived in other regions: bone remains were found on the northwestern side of Tasmania, on Hunter Island in Bass Strait and on Kangaroo Island, among others.

Another find was made between 1961 and 1963 Mount Hamilton lava cave in western Victoria. Subfossil remains of a total of around 290 individuals from 26 mammal species were discovered there, including extinct species such as thylacine and the white-footed rabbit rat (Conilurus albipes). The Australian paleontologist Norman Arthur Wakefield documented the finds in 1963 study. Among the remains discovered were also bones from at least seven individuals of the toolache wallaby—including two adults, one subadult and four juveniles. Characteristic features such as the shape of the palate and tooth structure allowed a clear classification to the species.

This important find represents the most recent only fossil record of Grey’s wallaby in Victoria. It confirms earlier assumptions that the species’ distribution area, at least temporarily, also included a narrow strip of western Victoria.

Mount Hamilton Cave is believed to have served as both a trap for lost animals and a repository for predators such as the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) or the extinct marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex) have served. Some of the bones found show bite marks, others come from animals that probably fell into the cave and died there.

The composition of animal species found in the cave allowed conclusions about past environmental and climatic conditions in the region. While the region is now dominated by open, pastoral landscapes, the findings suggest wetter and more vegetation-rich periods in the past—perhaps with denser understory or extensive grasslands, as would be typical under a cooler, drier climate with less rainfall.

The oldest evidence beyond mainland Australia David Horton and Peter Murray delivered in 1980 with the discovery of subfossil remains of the toolache wallaby in northwest Tasmania. The fossils date from the late Pleistocene and are therefore tens of thousands of years old. This discovery significantly expanded the known historical range of the species and demonstrates that Grey’s wallaby once occupied a significantly larger ecological niche than previously thought.

About the disappearance of the toolache wallaby and failed rescue attempts

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the toolache wallaby was considered relatively common in parts of its range. Australian zoologist Hedley Herbert Finlayson (1927) reported from particularly dense deposits in the areas around Kingston, Millicent, Robe, Naracoorte, Penola and Conmurra in the southeast of South Australia. Flannery and Schouten (2001) also confirm that the species was comparatively widespread until around 1910 was.

Although there was evidence of larger local populations, Finlayson still assessed the species as rather rare—especially compared to others Macropus-Species of the region. In contrast write Horton and Murray (1980) that this is wallaby “once very numerous” been. These different assessments may be explained by regional differences in occurrence and changes over time.

After 1910 the distribution area shrank significantly. Flannery (1990) describes only isolated remnants in an area that extended from the coast at Robe, Kingston and Beachport to the hinterland at Naracoorte and Penola. The The decline therefore occurred within a few years. For 1923 Finlayson recorded one small group of around 14 animals at Konetta Station, an agricultural area in southeast South Australia, about halfway between Robe and Penola.

Resettlement attempts to Kangaroo Island

In the year the last time live Grays wallabies were seen was in 1924. That same year, Wood Jones demanded that “every effort for the conservation of the species must be made immediately and vigorously if it is to be of any use.”

In response to the dramatic decline, the government, founded in 1921 and responsible for conservation issues in the state, recommended Flora and Fauna Board of South Australia, some of the last surviving animals in a protected reserve on Kangaroo Island to transfer. The goal was to save the toolache wallaby from ultimate extinction. two resettlement attempts—in May 1923 and again in 1924—failed: only four animals could be caught they died shortly after being caught, probably as a result of exhaustion and stress (Finlayson, 1927).

For example, while Finlayson and Flannery (1990) reported four wallabies that died during translocation attempts, other authors report up to ten animals that died during the capture operations, but these numbers are not sourced. Of the original 14 individuals on Konetta Station, ten are said to have died, while the remaining four remained on the site.

Public interest with tragic consequences

The increasing public interest in the last toolache wallabies had fatal consequences because it accelerated the extinction of the species. Individual animals from the last known group were specifically shot in order to preserve them as trophies:

“The realization that the toolache wallaby had almost disappeared aroused the desire for a fur among unscrupulous individuals. The fact that survivors of the failed capture attempt in 1924 were later killed in order to preserve them as trophies is proven by statements from at least one person involved.”

Finlayson, 1927

In 1927, a female animal with a young animal in its pouch was rescued from dogs and taken into human care. The cub died, but the mother survived. Finlayson wrote in the same year:

“It is likely to be the last of its kind in this state, since a careful and extensive survey of the territory of the Konetta group (…) in February of this year did not reveal any recent traces, either in the form of tracks, prints or droppings, and the resident who knows the country best is of the opinion that the group is completely extinct.”

Finlayson, 1927

This The last known specimen lived in human care for another twelve years and died in Robe on June 30, 1939. Today it is generally considered to be the last representative of its kind—an assessment that is confirmed by Flannery and Schouten (2001), among others.

British author David Day claimed in 1981 that “the last toolache wallaby died a few years later in Adelaide Zoo without having reproduced.” However, he does not give a specific date or source. Francis Harper also quotes in his work Extinct and Vanishing Mammals of the Old World (1945) from a letter by the Australian zoologist Albert Le Souef, according to which in 1937 there were “one or two specimens which are probably the last living representatives of this species” in the Adelaide Zoo. However, it has not been proven whether these animals survived the female, who was cared for in Robe until 1939.

The last recorded representative of the toolache wallaby died on June 30, 1939 in Robe. Later dates of death – for example in the Adelaide Zoo—cannot be reliably proven. The failed resettlement attempts and the public interest in the last individuals probably contributed significantly to the extinction of the species.

Last shots of a lost species

Believed to be the last toolache wallaby from the Konetta group, it was filmed on a fenced property in Robe in October 1936—just a few years before its death in 1939. The recordings are considered to be the only known film document of a living animal of this extinct species. They were made by Bernard Cotton, a member of the Field Naturalists Society of South Australia.

The approximately five-minute-long 16mm footage, which has been in the society’s archives for decades, begins in black and white and switches to color at the end for around 34 seconds, which is rare for footage from this period. Grey’s wallaby can be seen hopping, eating and grooming. The animal’s elegant locomotion, upright posture and characteristic facial markings are easy to recognize. For comparison, the film briefly shows four other wallaby species at the end to illustrate the morphological differences.

The historical film was released in 2025 National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) digitized and restored. The color scenes, which were heavily shifted to magenta due to chemical aging, were carefully color corrected. NFSA Film Conservator Dave McGrouther explained: “The material was not perfectly preserved—but good enough to show the last living representative of this species in color.”

Why is the toolache wallaby extinct?

In 1945, the American zoologist Francis Harper quoted a letter from the Australian mammalogist Ellis Le Geyt Troughton dated April 16, 1937. It said of Grey’s wallaby: “This beautiful species has the most tragic and probably most prophetic history of all kangaroos since white colonization.”

Hardly any other marsupial species embodies the fatal consequences of the European colonization of Australia as clearly as the toolache wallaby. Once relatively common in parts of South Australia, the species had already declined sharply from the middle of the 19th century—and barely 100 years after the founding of the British colony of South Australia, it finally disappeared.

Loss of habitat with the start of European colonization

The toolache wallaby was narrow bound to open grasslands and wetlands—habitats that were rapidly lost with the start of European settlement in southeast Australia. John Gould already described in The Mammals of Australia (1863) the “favorite places” of the species: According to this, Grey’s Wallaby lived in flat, open plains near the coast, crossed by salt lagoons and bordered by pine forests. When the weather was dry, the animals stayed in bushes near the lagoons or in the long grass; when it rained, they preferred the higher sand hills.

Finlayson (1927) complemented these observations and pointed out that Grey’s wallaby was particularly adapted to the so-called “fringe country”—transitional areas between sandy, nutrient-poor soils and more fertile clay soils. However, these regions were particularly attractive from the colonialists’ point of view: They were settled early, parceled out, drained and converted into agricultural land.

The The British colony of South Australia was founded in 1836 marked the beginning of a profound change. Within a few decades, large parts of the original habitat disappeared. Swamps, which according to Robinson and Young (1983) formed a significant part of the species’ habitat, were systematically drained beginning in 1862. Sheep and cattle pastures replaced the natural vegetation. Open bush landscapes and grassy areas were also cleared, fenced off and intensively used—with fatal consequences for Grey’s wallaby, which depended on these habitats.

Many experts, including Flannery (1990) and Robinson & Young (1983), consider the destruction of natural habitat through drainage, land clearing and grazing as the main cause of Grey’s wallaby extinction. The hope that small remaining populations could persist was finally dashed by a second wave of intensive land use in the 1950s at the latest.

Sport hunting, bounties and the fur trade

In the decades following European settlement in southeast Australia, the toolache wallaby became increasingly targeted by people—not out of necessity, but out of sporting ambition, political calculation and economic interest. Grey’s wallaby hunting was particularly widespread in the open grasslands of South Australia and was celebrated as a recreational pastime. Finlayson (1927) documented in detail the popular “wallaby hunting” with so-called kangaroo dogs. Bred in Australia since the 1830s from various fast-running dog breeds, these kangaroo dogs were originally used to hunt kangaroos.

The toolache wallaby was a sought-after target precisely because of its enormous maneuverability and speed. Hunting usually took place on sight, often until the animal was completely exhausted. It was by no means used to produce meat, but rather was an expression of a colonial zeitgeist, in which wild animals primarily serve as a sporting challenge or competition with pastoralism were valid.

Grey’s wallaby fur was also in demand. Wood Jones (1924) reports that the elegant skins were marketed in large numbers in Melbourne showrooms. The distinctive facial markings and the finely structured, contrasting fur made Notomacropus greyi an attractive commodity. Although the animal had a limited local distribution, the trade in its fur seems to have been quite relevant, at least in urban circles.

With the advent of government regulation, pressure on the toolache wallaby continued to increase. At the beginning of the 20th century the government in South Australia paid a bounty of sixpence for every scalp surrendered—a piece of hairy scalp that served as evidence of the shooting. The measure was part of government-sponsored “extermination programs” against marsupials considered harmful. Especially in times of drought, farmers considered kangaroos and wallabies as competitors for grass and water resources, which were actually intended for sheep and cattle. The wallabies were considered animals plague on cultivated areas, because they damaged fences, overused pastures and promoted erosion—at least that was the argument at the time.

But even without shooting an toolache wallaby, some tried to get scalps:

“I heard of schoolchildren who regularly visited eagle nests to collect the remains of young toolachs – because their scalps also brought sixpence.”

Finlayson, 1927

Even young animals were deliberately hunted, which made the continued existence of the species even more difficult. That Grey’s wallaby organized itself into social groups and a showed strong loyalty to the location, further aggravated the situation. The Australian author Raymond T. Hoser points out in Endangered Animals of Australia (1991) points out, that the animals always retreated to the same area even after repeated disturbances. This attachment to a fixed territory made it easy for hunters to track down entire groups and completely eliminate them over multiple hunting trips.

The combination of sporting hunting, economic interest in fur, state bounty policy and territorial behavior of the animals may have significantly accelerated the decline of Grey’s wallaby—long before serious conservation measures were even considered.

Invasive species as a cause of extinction: the red fox

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is one of the most consequential invasive species in Australia. It was introduced in the mid-19th century by European settlers who wanted to practice fox hunting, known from Great Britain, on the continent. Within a few decades, the fox spread across large parts of southern and eastern Australia—with devastating effects on numerous endemic marsupial species that had evolved over thousands of years without major ground-dwelling predators.

The toolache wallaby was also affected by this development. Young animals in particular regularly fell victim to foxes. In his study from 1927 Finlayson even saw the fox as the decisive factor in the extinction of the species—especially in remote, sparsely populated regions where human influence was low. He wrote:

“In the almost uninhabited desert areas where there is little human intervention, the fox appears to have been the sole factor in extinction.”

Finlayson, 1927

Finlayson also emphasized that foxes caused considerable damage to young animals even in larger kangaroo species—the effect was particularly serious on the sensitive Grey’s wallaby:

“The fox also causes considerable damage to young animals among the larger kangaroos—and was particularly devastating for the toolach.”

Finlayson, 1927

Later researchers qualified this assessment. Flannery (1990), for example, disputed the idea that foxes were solely responsible for the disappearance of the toolache wallaby. Although he also admitted that invasive species such as the red fox contributed significantly to the decline, he saw the extinction as the result of a complex set of causes: hunting, habitat destruction, disturbance by humans and domestic or farm animals—all of which weakened the species and made it more vulnerable to predators.

There were predators even before the fox arrived: The wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax), for example, specifically hunted young wallabies. But the spread of the fox increased the pressure massively; especially because the animals were also able to penetrate into less accessible regions.

There was also an often overlooked factor, which Finlayson (1927) discusses in detail: The hunting of foxes with dogs, which was popular in South Australia, also had fatal consequences for the toolache wallaby. The dogs used for hunting not only hunted foxes, but often also pursued other wild animals, including wallabies, and killed them even though they were not the actual target. The attempt to combat an invasive species indirectly had an additional negative impact on an already threatened animal species.

Sightings of Grey’s wallaby after 1940?

In 1981, David Day wrote in The Doomsday Book of Animals that “Australian birds and mammals are notorious for reappearing years after they have been declared extinct—only to disappear again once people are sure of their existence”. He was probably referring to cases such as the repeatedly lost and rediscovered desert rat-kangaroo. Day could not yet have foreseen that Gilbert’s potoroo (Potorous gilbertii), missing since 1909, would soon also be rediscovered—nor the rediscovery of the Australian night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis), which until 1990 was known only from museum specimens.

Nevertheless, Day was certain about one thing:

“Australia is still a continent with a lot of space and wilderness, and one can hope in some cases that the extinctions recorded here (…) may be ‘somewhat exaggerated’. However, there is no doubt about the complete disappearance of the most beautiful member of the kangaroo family, the (…) Grey’s wallaby, which became extinct around 1940.”

Day, 1981

And yet: even after the death of the last confirmed toolache wallaby in 1939, more or less credible reports of sightings of the species continued to circulate.

According to Tim Flannery (1990), there is only one credible observation after 1940: in 1943, two greyhounds owned by an Albert Joseph are said to have caught a living toolache wallaby. All other reports investigated by biologists on site, according to Flannery, remained unconfirmed or proved to involve another species – usually the red-necked wallaby (Notamacropus rufogriseus).

In 1975 and 1976, the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service conducted a targeted investigation to follow up possible remnant populations. It was based on reliable statements from local naturalists who reported smaller populations of Grey’s wallaby in remote regions, especially from the 1950s to the early 1970s. However, no evidence could be obtained.

Alleged observations also come from the area around Lake Hawdon: according to the Biological Survey of Lake Hawdon South Australia (2001), residents reported sightings in 1953. These included a toolache wallaby found dead on “Bog Lane” near Lake St Clair and three living Grey’s wallabies at Wood Soak, between Lake St Clair and Bray Junction.

If these reports are accurate, it seems likely that the wide grasslands around Lake Hawdon were among the last refuges of the toolache wallaby in southeastern Australia. The IUCN therefore adopted the assessment of the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service and dated the last credible sighting of the species to the 1970s—in recognition of the serious observations documented at the time.

Taxonomy: From Captain Grey’s kangaroo to Notamacropus greyi

The toolache wallaby first became known to Western science through Sir George Grey, then governor of the colony of South Australia. He had the skins and skulls of a male and a female from the Coorong region sent to the British Museum of Natural History in London. There, the British zoologist John Edward Gray examined the finds and listed the species in his 1843 List of the Specimens of Mammalia in the Collection of the British Museum under the name Halmaturus greyii—as “Captain Grey’s kangaroo”, named in honor of George Grey.

Gray initially did not provide a detailed description. George Robert Waterhouse supplied a more detailed characterization only in 1846 in his work A Natural History of the Mammalia. Like Gray, he assigned the new species to the then commonly used genus Halmaturus, which included many kangaroo and wallaby forms. Further systematic additions to the species later came from John Gould (1863), Oldfield Thomas (1888) and Frederic Wood Jones (1925).

Over the course of the 20th century, the toolache wallaby was systematically reclassified. Initially listed as Macropus (Notamacropus) greyi, it was considered part of a subgenus (Notamacropus) within the large kangaroo genus Macropus. This group includes several smaller marsupial species commonly referred to as wallabies.

As early as 1985, Tim Flannery and Lyndall Dawson proposed in a revision that the group previously treated as the subgenus Notamacropus should be used formally for eight closely related wallaby species. This systematic reorganization was developed further in 2015 by Colin Groves and Stephen Jackson in their monograph Taxonomy of Australian Mammals: they raised Notamacropus—as well as Osphranter and Wallabia—to the rank of independent genera to reflect the phylogenetic differences within kangaroos more precisely. However, many institutions adopted this change only after a delay.

The new systematics were supported by a molecular genetic study by Celik et al. (2019), which genetically confirmed the independence of Notamacropus. The Australian Faunal Directory (AFD) finally officially recognized the revised classification in 2020.

The background to this revision was the realization that some of the smaller wallaby species—including the toolache wallaby—are more closely related to one another than to the other species of the traditional genus Macropus. The latter long served as a collective name for medium-sized to large kangaroos and wallabies. The separation of Notamacropus as a distinct genus therefore better reflects the actual relationships. Today the genus Notamacropus comprises eight species—only one of them is extinct: Notamacropus greyi, the toolache wallaby.

Name origin: toolache Wallaby

The most common English name for Grey’s wallaby is “toolache wallaby”. Finlayson already suspected in 1927 that the name “toolache” from the Aboriginal language even if he didn’t know the exact meaning. He noted that European settlers commonly pronounced the word as “Toe-lait-shee”—with an emphasis on the second syllable.

Modernity linguistic studies confirm this assumption: The name most likely goes back to the word “rtulatji” from the language of the Ngarrindjeri, the indigenous population of the southeastern coastal region of South Australia. An important contribution to the tradition was made by the Ngarrindjeri elder Milerum, who was considered an important mediator between indigenous and western knowledge cultures until the middle of the 20th century. He documented over 500 words that had not previously been recorded in any written source, including “rtulatji” for the toolache Wallaby.

In addition, alternative names that are hardly used today, such as “monkeyface” or “onetwo”, also circulated in English. They probably referred to the striking facial pattern or the characteristic rhythm of movement of Grey’s wallaby.

Closest relative: the western brush wallaby

Natural scientists suspected early on how John Gould or George Waterhouse that the toolache wallaby is closely related to the western brush wallaby (Notamacropus irma) is related—based on clear external similarities such as fur pattern and body structure as well as anatomical similarities. Finlayson also agreed with this assessment in 1927: within the subgenre that was common at the time Wallabia he looked at Macropus irma as the next relative of Macropus greyi.

What was particularly striking to Finlayson was the geographical separation of the two species: While M. irma only occurs in the far southwest of Western Australia M. greyi limited to the southeast of the continent. There is a huge, dry area between the two ranges—a habitat that is unsuitable for either species. Finlayson therefore considered it possible that the similarities were due less to direct relationship than to parallel evolution.

This question could only be clarified beyond doubt many decades later through genetic analysis. It was only the study by Celik et al. published in 2019. examined both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from various kangaroo and wallaby species, including genetic material from the extinct toolache wallaby. The result: Notamacropus greyi and Notamacropus irma form a common pair of sisters within the genus Notamacropus. They share a direct common ancestor and probably separated several million years ago in the Pliocene.

The study thus refutes older theories of purely parallel or convergent development and instead confirms one allopatric speciation resulting from geographical isolation. While one line was able to hold out in the southwest, the other in the southeast survived—at least until settlement by Europeans.

Morphological comparisons, such as the tooth structure or the skull, had also suggested a close relationship. The genetic data now clearly supports these findings and closes the gap between historical observation and modern evolutionary research: The toolache wallaby was actually the closest relative of the western brush wallaby that is still alive today—together they form a clearly defined duo within the wallabies (Notamacropus).

The toolache wallaby in museums and zoos

Despite its distinctive appearance and the tragic story of its disappearance, the toolache wallaby is today only in a few natural history collections worldwide represent. As early as 1927, Finlayson criticized the inadequate museum documentation of the species. According to his research at the time, there were only six skins and seven skulls in public collections in Australia—four of which were skins and five skulls in the South Australian Museum in Adelaide.

Finlayson also expressed regret at the failure of the resettlement attempts of 1923 and 1924, the aim of which was to establish a small population in protected areas or zoological establishments. Although the captured animals did not survive, they at least provided urgently needed scientific preparation material for the museums.

An overview of known museum holdings (certainly not complete):

• Natural History Museum (London): 4 skins, 2 skulls (including the holotype that came to the museum through George Gray)
• Natural History Museum, Tring (UK): 1 prepared specimen
• National Museum of Natural History (Paris): 1 prepared male specimen
• Natural History Museum Vienna: 1 prepared specimen
• Australian Museum (Sydney): at least 1 skin
• South Australian Museum (Adelaide): 4 skins, 5 skulls

Only two document attitudes in zoological gardens

According to Zoo animal list the toolache wallaby was only kept in two zoological facilities. A male lived from 1921 to 1922 Philadelphia Zoo (USA)—believed to be the only example of its kind ever shown publicly outside of Australia.

The second documented attitude concerns the Adelaide Zoo in South Australia. However, the number, gender and duration of the animals kept there are unknown hardly any reliable information before. In a letter dated February 15, 1937, zoologist Albert Alexander Le Souef mentioned to Francis Harper (1945) “one or two specimens” in the zoo from Adelaide, which are probably the last living representatives of the species. David Day (1981) also reports that the last toolache wallaby died at Adelaide Zoo “several years” after the death of the last known individual in Robe (30 June 1939), but without giving a date or source.

The fate of the toolache wallaby was not an isolated incident

Since European settlement began in 1788 are in Australia at least 40 species and six subspecies land-dwelling mammals extinct—more than on any other continent. This shows a current one analysis by Andrew A. Burbidge (2024). In addition to prominent examples such as the thylacine, this also applies to lesser-known species such as the lesser bilby, the broad-faced potoroo, several species of the genera Notomys, Pseudomys, Melomys (for example the Bramble Cay mosaic-tailed rat) and Rattus (like this Maclear’s rat). Eight of the extinct species have so far only been documented through subfossil finds, but everything indicates that they also only disappeared after 1788.

Such losses are no coincidence. As the British author Samuel T. Turvey (2009) in Holocene extinctions shows, are worldwide, at least 255 land mammal species became extinct in the Holocene—especially through human intervention: Overhunting, the introduction of invasive species such as cats, foxes and rats, habitat loss and large-scale environmental changes. Australia was particularly vulnerable due to its isolated development and highly specialized fauna.

The fate of the toolache wallaby exemplifies the often initially unnoticed disappearance of many Australian animal species. It shows how comprehensive the settlement by Europeans destroyed existing ecological balances in just a few generations—not just through direct hunting, but through the profound transformation of entire landscapes.

Hedley Herbert Finlayson brought this change to his work The Red Centre (1935) to the point:

“It is not so much the introduction of grazing animals that wipes out species—although that has happened often enough—but rather the complex balance that has long characterized flora and fauna is drastically disrupted or even completely destroyed. Some species are favored at the expense of others; behaviors change; ranges shift. (…) Old Australia is disappearing. (…) The environment that gave rise to arguably the most remarkable wildlife in the world is beset on all sides by influences that are turning it into a conglomerate semi-artificial habitats – in which the original plan is lost and whose final outcome no one can predict.”

Finlayson, 1935

Finlayson’s words seem like a dark prophecy today. Australia’s unique wildlife is increasingly forced to assert itself in an environment that has been shaped by humans. The toolache wallaby was one of many victims this change—and unfortunately probably not the last.

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Sources

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