While conducting a population survey in Epping Forest National Park, a national park in Queensland, Australia, a ranger spotted an incredibly rare wombat and captured some equally rare daytime footage of this typically nocturnal animal. Queensland National Parks shared the footage to Instagram, identifying the animal as a northern hairy-nosed wombat.
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Northern hairy-nosed wombats are the largest of Australia’s three wombat species, and they’re the most endangered mammals in Queensland. Northern hairy-nosed wombats live only in a few isolated places in Queensland, and there are fewer than 400 individuals left in the wild. This is a huge improvement from about a half-century ago, when there were only about 35 northern hairy-nosed wombats left on Earth.
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“Ranger Sam captured this amazing footage of a RARE DAYTIME encounter with a northern hairy-nosed wombat at Epping Forest National Park (Scientific) during a recent Department of Environment and Science (DES) population survey,” Queensland National Parks wrote in the Instagram post sharing the video. “Surveys like these and all the hard work our Threatened Species team does is crucial to the survival of this critically endangered wombat.”
See the rare daytime footage of an endangered wombat here:
Header stock image of southern hairy-nosed wombat by imageBROKER/Juergen & Christine Sohns/Getty Images
