Unidan, AKA Ben Eisenkop, is an ecosystem ecologist who first rose to fame (infamy?) on Reddit by popping up in posts across the site, answering any queries and concepts pertaining to biology and ecology. Eisenkop will be a columnist for Upvoted, where he’ll be spotlighting a new creature every week.

When we think of Australian animals, we often conjure two separate notions: one containing koalas and kangaroos and another containing horrifying spiders and venomous snakes. While both are wonderful to learn about, there exists a third category that I want to share today, which is one of bizarre preciousness. Therefore, without further ado, I present the numbat.

I first came across the numbat’s existence a few years ago when I was searching for articles regarding the radiotracking of wild animals for a project of my own. I stumbled across an older article by Australian researchers which described their surprisingly large home ranges and locations of their winter burrows. As an American scientist, I was a bit perplexed. Had someone misspelled “wombat”? Was it some kind of Novocain-riddled flying rodent? I needed to know!

I was pleasantly surprised.

The numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus) is an endangered carnivorous marsupial in the order Dasyuromorphia, the same order as the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), which, yes, is not just a cartoon character. With its long bushy tail, red front and banded backside, the numbat almost looks like a chimera of anteater, squirrel and bottle-cleaning brush. The anteater part is quite true, in fact. The numbat’s diet consists mainly of termites, which it uses its bizarrely long, sticky tongue to capture!

Sadly, the introduction of foxes to parts of Australia have led to declines of natural numbat population. However, biological controls and new breeding programs have seen a resurgence of their numbers. Hooray for numbats!

If you’re interested in helping to preserve this animal and its habitat for future generations, please consider a donation to Perth Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation Action.