Another one on the hit list, the striped possum, a tropical species found only in far north Queensland and PNG with striking black and white stripes. As soon as we reached Townsville, the southern most part of their distribution, we were on the lookout.

Graeme spotted two of them, one in the Atherton Tablelands and one in the Daintree, while spotlighting. Striped possums have a unique, elongated 4^th finger to scratch out bugs from rotting timber which can often make an obvious scratching noise. Graeme heard this noise one night and followed it deep into the bush until he found the culprit way up in a tree!

Unfortunately for me I was too tired to spotlight those nights and I missed them. But my rule for this trip is that if I don’t see the animal it doesn’t count, so our search was not over yet.

This species is supposedly common in the Cairns Botanical Gardens, but our spotlighting was unsuccessful. Cape York didn’t provide me with a viewing either. So on our way from Cape York to western Qld we went back to the Atherton Tableland for the third time and stayed at a birdwatching lodge (nerds!) where we had it on good authority that there was a resident striped possum.

The Kingfisher Lodge has an amazing array of wildlife on their property including the green ringtail possum (also a first for us) and many bird species. And as luck would have it we found this beautiful striped possum foraging in a tree. Striped possum…TICK!