Wandering Observations

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Mystery Animal

The other night, Louise and I were walking back to my apartment from the train station after dark. All of a sudden we saw a small animal coming up to us. As cat lovers, we just assumed it was just a kitty coming up for a pet, but as it came closer, the streetlamp made it very clear that it was not a cat. With this small animal with pointy ears, a tapered snout and long tail running up to us, my first instinct was to run away. I think part of it was growing up in a country with rabies: wild animals that run up to you are bad. But in Australia, they don't have rabies, so Louise bent over and gave the strange little thing a good pet (supposedly, he was very soft). When I asked her what animal it was, she had no idea. Imagine that! I grew up near Toronto, where are there about four different animals you might run across in the city. If you see an animal, you immediately know what it is: raccoon, squirrel, rat, bird. If you saw an animal that you didn't recognize, I think you'd panic and call animal services! The following internet search produced a whole number of possible species, it really is incredible how many different (and strange) animals can be found here.

Was it a quoll?