The bandicoot pig rat of Asia and the true bandicoot of Australia look somewhat alike and share certain habits. Both are ratty type animals and both use their front feet to grub for food in the soil, much like wild pigs. Both are mammals, warm blooded and fur coated animals who feed their babies on mothers milk. But here the likeness ends. For the true bandicoot is a marsupial, or pouched animal.
T o find him in his native home we must travel half way around the world to the land of marsupials where the kangaroo, the koala bear, the wallaby and most other native animals carry their new born babies in a fur lined pouch on Mamas tummy.
In Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea there are many kinds of bandicoot ranging in size from a chipmunk to a bunny. Their family name is Peramelidae, a fancy scientific word which means badger with a pouch. The bandicoot, however, is not a badger any more than he is a pig or a rat.
The little fellow is a night prowler and spends his day dozing in a hollow tree or rocky crevice. He is a brownish animal with a fairly long, ratty tail. He has a pixy type face with a sharp pointed chin and long, leafy ears. The big rabbit bandicoot has ears as big as a bunny’s. Every bandicoot has long, slender feet tipped with sharp claws and he uses them for digging up his dinner of worms, insects and larvae.
Once in a while he nibbles a root, a fallen berry or a green leaf, when startled, the bandicoot leaps high into the air, as though scared out of his skin.
However, Mr. Bandicoot is a scrappy fellow and no coward. Two males will fight a duel by chasing each other around and around, The swifter one will catch the other, jump at his back and pound with his powerful back legs. The defeated duelist is sure to lose hair and maybe scraps of skin from his back.
Mrs. Bandicoot bears two tiny, helpless babies in May or June. They go immediately into her pouch and stay there for several months. The pouch is rather unusual, even for marsupials. The opening of this cozy cradle is at the bottom, at the opposite end of the pouch from the kangaroo.
The bandicoot of Asia is often rated as a great nuisance for he is fond of seeds buried in the ground. He raids the rice fields for the newly planted seeds and tender shoots. And one of these bandicoots of Asia has hoof like claws which make it Very easy for him to dig up the freshly cultivated soil.