(Macropus parryi).

Also known as the Pretty-face wallaby, Grey-faced wallaby and Grey or Blue Flier, the Whiptail Wallaby was previously known by the scientific name of Wallabia elegans. It has a light grey upper winter coat which turns brownish grey in summer summer with white below. The forhead and base of the ears are dark brown. There is a white stripe on upper lip and a light brown stripe down the neck to the shoulder. The animal has a white hip stripe and a long, slender tail with a dark tip. Males grow up to 920 mm in head and bodylength (females 750 mm) with a tail extending up to a further 1 metre (females 800 mm). Males can reach a weight of over 20 kilograms (usually around 16 kg) while females can attain 15 kg (normally around 11 kg).

Once considered a contender for the title of Captain Cook's Kangaroo (see the Easterm Grey Kangaroo), the Whiptail Wallaby has a distribution which barely reaches Cooktown, Qld, its densest populations being in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. It is an inhabitant of undulating or hilly country with open forest and a grass understorey. It is a grazer, feeding primarily on grasses and other herbaccous plants, including ferns.

Except during drought, it seldom drinks, apparently getting sufficient moisture under normal circumstances from its food and front dew. It is unusually diurnal for a macropod. Feeding activity is at a maximum at dawn and continues into the early morning with increased periods of rest during the middle of the day. Feeding is resumed in the late afternoon and continues into the night. During the hotter part of the day, the whiptail wallaby seeks patches of shade and, when the air temperature rises above 30°C, animals may lick their forearms to increase evaporative cooling.

A social species, it lives in groups of up to 50 individuals, comprised of subgroups of 10 or less which typically include adults and subadults of both sexes and young at foot. A subgroup occupies a home range which may partially or completely overlap those of other subgroups. Vocal communication includes a soft cough, indicating fear or submission, a sound intermediate between a hiss and a growl which is used by females as a defensive threat and a soft clucking made by courting males. When alarmed, an individual thumps the ground with its hindfeet and all animals in a group hop away, taking a zig-zag course which is probably confusing to a predator.

Under natural conditions, females do not breed until they are older than 18-24 months and males do not have the opportunity to mate before the age of 2-3 years. Courtship of a female in oestrus is characterised by the dominant male and a number of subordinate males following the female. A dominant male keeps others at a distance by chasing and by a ritualised gesture of aggression which involves pulling up clumps of grass with the forepaws while directing its head towards the threatened individual. Copulation occurs on only one day per oestrous cycle of 41-44 days.

Gestation takes 34-38 days, the young being born while the female sits on the base of its tail with its back supported by a firm object and the tail extended between the outstretched hindlegs. The young becomes detached from the teat when about 23 weeks old and vacates the pouch at about 37 weeks but continues suckling until about 15 months old. Throughout this period, the mother grooms the young, decreasingly as it approaches independence. Towards the end of the pouch life of its young, the female comes into oestrus and mates again, producing a quiescent blastocyst which does not develop further until the pouch is vacated.

The Whiptail Wallaby is regarded as common throughout its range. Being a grazer, it probably benefited from the early agricultural practice of ringbarking, which perniitted more grass to grow in forests while retaining adequate shelter. Total clearing of forest has had a detrimental effect on the species in some areas but it is sufficiently widespread and represented in national parks and reserves to be in no danger.

Source: 'Complete Book of Australian Mammals' - Australian Museum, 1983.

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