Western Quoll (Kuningka)

Quolls are carnivorous marsupials which are approximately the size of cat. The Western Quolls are a distinct species that occur in the centre and western parts of Australia, and are somewhat smaller in size than the Eastern Quoll.

It now lives in remnant forest, woodlands and mallee shrublands in the southwest of Western Australia. The original habitat of western quolls was once quite large, including stretches of desert in the arid part of Central Australia.

Western Quoll - Kuningka
Drawing of Western Quoll (source: CALM, WA)

Western quolls are important to Aboriginal people of Australia as a symbol in their mythology, as food, and for ceremonial purposes.

Pintupi-speaking Aboriginal people call them Kuningka. The anthropologist Fred Myers has recorded how Kuningka, the Western Quoll Ancestor, dominates Tingari stories in the Pintupi lands west of Lake MacDonald (Myers 1986). The Tingari Cycle narrativesdecribe how the Tingari ancestors brought key aspects of the Pintupi speaking people's current customs to the Western Desert from the north.

Western quolls are nocturnal and territorial creatures. They usually feed at night and are very active animals, moving about constantly looking for food both on the ground and in trees. Western quolls prefer to live in burrows or hollow logs but will occasionally use bandicoot nests and tree hollows. Its diet consists of insects such as termites and beetles, small reptiles, frogs, small mammals and the occasional bird.

Before Europeans arrived in Australia, quolls and other carnivorous marsupials had few natural enemies. As a result they were common in many areas when Europeans first arrived. However due to various causes, its range was already shrinking rapidly as early as the middle of the 19th century.