Dusky pademelons

03november2014
Source: zooantwerpen.be
If you want to see an unusual species, you can visit ZOO Antwerpen for its dusky pademelons. Pademelon is a collective term for the smallest relatives of the kangaroo and the wallaby.
Three zoos in Europe keep dusky pademelons. Of the breeding pair in Antwerp ZOO, the female is from the zoo in Magdeburg, Germany and the male has just moved from Pilsen in the Czech Republic. Both animals have recently turned one year old. The staff in Antwerp hopes that the two really hit it off.

The dusky pademolen is only found on New Guinea and a few other islands off its coast. A Dutch seafarer and adventurer, Cornelis de Bruijn, saw these animals in the garden of a magistrate of the Dutch East India Company in Java, and in 1711 was the first to describe and draw them. Both the Dutch and the Latin name for the species refer to him.

Pademelons are smaller than wallabies and have a shorter, thicker tail with less fur. They are very timid and are good at hiding in the forest in which they live. In the zoo, pademelons are fed hay, small twigs and special kangaroo pellets.