Quokka (Setonix brachyurus): Facts About the Smiling Marsupial

What is a quokka?

The quokka is a macropod, a member of the family Macropodidae, which includes kangaroos, wallabies and pademelons. Like all marsupials, it gives birth to a tiny, undeveloped young that finishes growing in its mother’s pouch. It is the only species in its genus, Setonix, so it has no close “sister” species.

The name comes from the Noongar language of southwestern Australia, probably from a word written as gwaga. European visitors met the animal in the 1600s. In 1696 the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh mistook quokkas for giant rats and named their island “Rottenest,” meaning rat’s nest. The name survives today as Rottnest Island, called Wadjemup by the Noongar people.

Appearance

A quokka looks like a miniature, stocky wallaby. It has a short, broad head, small rounded ears, dark eyes and a black nose. The coarse, thick fur is grizzled gray-brown above, often with a reddish tinge around the face and neck, and paler buff on the belly.

The hind legs are long and strong for hopping, while the front legs are short with small, clawed hands used to hold food. The tail is noticeably short for a macropod, which is where the scientific name brachyurus, meaning short-tailed, comes from. The tail is sparsely haired and is not used for balance as much as a kangaroo’s tail.

The feature everyone notices is the face. The corners of the mouth turn up, and the cheeks are rounded, so in front-on photos the quokka seems to be grinning. That expression is simply the shape of its jaw and lips; the full story is in why quokkas seem to smile.

How big is a quokka?

The quokka is about the size of a house cat, making it one of the smaller members of the kangaroo family. Its long hind feet make it look taller when it stands upright.

Males tend to be a little larger and heavier than females. Island quokkas can lose a lot of weight at the end of the dry summer, when food and water are scarce.

For comparison, a fully grown male red kangaroo can weigh more than 80 kg (176 lb), around 20 times as much as a large quokka.

Habitat and range

Quokkas live only in the southwest corner of Western Australia. The two largest populations are on islands. Rottnest Island, about 18 km (11 miles) off the coast near Perth, holds roughly 8,000–12,000 quokkas according to a 2007 estimate. Bald Island, near Albany on the south coast, holds a few hundred to about 1,000.

On the mainland, quokkas survive in small, isolated groups between Perth and Albany, mostly in the wetter southern forests and coastal heath. Most of these groups have fewer than 50 animals, and the mainland total is estimated at around 4,000. A colony also lives in Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve near Albany.

Habitat needs differ between the islands and the mainland:

• On the islands, quokkas use almost every habitat, from low scrub and heath to settlements and gardens. Prickly shrubs give them shady daytime shelter.
• On the mainland, they depend on dense, low vegetation such as swampy thickets and forest understory, in areas with at least about 600 mm (24 in) of rain a year. Thick cover hides them from introduced predators.

What do quokkas eat?

Quokkas are herbivores. They eat grasses, sedges, leaves, stems and the shoots of shrubs, along with succulent plants that provide water. Studies on Rottnest Island have found that small shrubs in the mallow family, such as Guichenotia ledifolia, are among their favorite foods.

Like kangaroos, quokkas have a chambered stomach in which microbes help break down tough plant fiber. They can bring food back up and chew it again, a little like a cow chewing the cud. This helps them get the most nutrition from poor-quality plants.

Water is a real challenge on Rottnest, where fresh water is scarce in summer. Quokkas get most of their moisture from plants. Late in the dry season, food quality falls, and many animals lose condition or die, so the island population rises and falls with the seasons.

Feeding quokkas human food such as bread or chips is harmful to them and is not allowed on Rottnest Island.

Behavior and daily life

Quokkas are mainly nocturnal. They spend the hot part of the day resting in the shade of dense or spiny shrubs and come out in the late afternoon and at night to feed. On Rottnest, where they are used to people, many are also seen moving around during the day.

They are social in a loose way. Quokkas often feed close together and share watering places, but they do not form tight family groups. Males establish a dominance order, and larger males defend shady resting spots in the hottest weather. Animals move between familiar home ranges rather than defending large territories.

Although they look like small kangaroos, quokkas are surprisingly agile. They hop through narrow tunnels in vegetation and can climb into low trees and shrubs to around 1.5 m (5 ft) to reach leaves.

Reproduction, life cycle and lifespan

Quokkas usually give birth to a single young, called a joey, after a pregnancy of about one month. The tiny newborn crawls to the pouch and attaches to a teat. Like many macropods, a female can mate again shortly after giving birth and hold the new embryo in a dormant state, ready to develop if the first joey is lost.

The joey stays in the pouch for about six months. It then follows its mother and keeps drinking her milk for about two more months, until it is weaned at roughly eight months old. Females can breed at about 18 months of age.

On Rottnest Island, breeding is seasonal, with most births in late summer and autumn. Mainland quokkas, which have more reliable food, can breed through much of the year and may raise two young in a year. Over her life, a female may produce many joeys, but on average only one young is successfully raised each year.

Quokkas live for about 10 years on average in the wild. Many young animals die in their first year, especially at the end of the dry season on the islands or from predators on the mainland, so the average life is shorter than the maximum. Captive quokkas in zoos and wildlife parks have a similar lifespan, sometimes a little longer.

Predators and threats

On Rottnest and Bald islands there are no foxes, cats or dingoes, which is the main reason quokkas are so abundant there. Snakes are their only natural predator on Rottnest.

On the mainland the story is very different. Introduced red foxes and feral cats, along with dingoes and dogs, prey on quokkas, especially young ones. Quokkas have survived mainly where dense vegetation gives them cover or where fox control is carried out.

Other threats include:

• Habitat loss from land clearing for farming, logging and housing, and the draining or burning of swamps.
• Bushfires, which destroy cover and food. Quokkas recover slowly after intense fires. In 2015 a large bushfire near Northcliffe killed an estimated 90% of a local population of about 500 animals.
• Climate change, as a drier, hotter southwest shrinks the moist habitat quokkas need.

Conservation status

The quokka is classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, with a decreasing population trend. It is also listed as Vulnerable under Australian national law.

When Europeans arrived, quokkas were widespread across about 41,200 km² (15,900 sq mi) of southwestern Australia. By 1992 their mainland range had shrunk by more than half. Today the species depends heavily on the two island populations and on predator control, fire management and habitat protection on the mainland.

There is some good news. Quokkas are found in protected areas, and in late 2024 a previously unknown population was photographed in the hills near Perth. Its exact location has been kept confidential to protect it.

Quokkas and people

Quokkas have little fear of people, especially on Rottnest Island, where hundreds of thousands of visitors arrive each year. In the mid-2010s, “quokka selfies” became an internet trend, with tourists and celebrities posing beside smiling quokkas. The trend has made the quokka one of Australia’s best-known animals and boosted tourism to the island.

The rules are simple: look, take photos from a respectful distance, and do not touch or feed. Quokkas are protected, handling them is illegal, and the Rottnest Island Authority can issue on-the-spot fines. Quokkas also bite every year, often when children try to feed or pick them up, and they can carry bacteria such as Salmonella.

Myths and facts

Myth: Quokkas are always happy. The “smile” is the natural shape of the mouth. Quokkas show stress and fear like any wild animal, even when they appear to grin.

Myth: Quokkas throw their babies at predators. A female being chased may let her joey fall out of the pouch, and the young may then attract the predator’s attention while the mother escapes. This is a rare emergency behavior, not a deliberate throw, and it has been exaggerated online.

Fact: The quokka is a true island success story. Thanks to the absence of foxes and cats, Rottnest Island now holds more quokkas than the whole mainland. The quokka is also one of the best-known animals that start with Q, alongside the quoll and the quetzal.