ANIMALS

In Lamington National Park, we saw a lot of pademelons. Now, you might be wondering what is as pademelon?

 photograph Terri Mueller

This is a pademelon, cute right? Pademelons are macropods and marsupials, which means they are related to kangaroos and wallabies. The word macropod comes from two Greek words. Macro means big, and podi means foot, so ‘big feet’. The pademelons are much smaller than other macropods, they are about the size of an American possum. A marsupial is a creature that gives birth to a premature baby and keeps its little one in a pouch until fully grown. We mostly saw the pademelons at night, and every time we tried to take a picture of them, they would run off into the woods. They are so cute!!!

trapdoor spider burrow

One day in Lamington while we were hiking, John Hall pointed out a trapdoor spider burrow.

huntsmen spider

These spider burrows were everywhere on the side of the track. At night, trapdoor spiders leave out strands of silk and sit inside the door. When they feel the silk vibrate, they jump out of their hole and pull the creature into the burrow. The door shuts closed and the creature is trapped inside the burrow and the spider eats it. That is why they call it a trapdoor spider. We also saw a lot of funnel spider webs. Thank goodness we did not see the actual spiders. The only spider we saw was a big huntsman spider that was in our tent. It was bigger than a quarter.

funnel spider burrow