Ecologist Dympna Cullen, who was then working on her Ph.D. at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), led the inquiry. She built on a 2016 study<\/a> that tracked the ampurta\u2019s initial bounce-back after rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus, also known as calicivirus, spread in Australia flooding its release in 1995.<\/p>\n Cullen wrote that while species recovery is rare, in this case, the drought-resilient ampurtas had \u201ccapitalize[d] on extreme conditions to re-invade their former range, where competition and predation were reduced.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite its diminutive size and cute appearance, the nocturnal, sand dune-dwelling ampurta is a voracious, carnivorous micro-predator with very sharp teeth. It, like the Tasmanian devil, is a member of the Dasyuridae family, often called the \u201cmarsupial carnivores.\u201d<\/p>\n They mostly eat invertebrates, but \u201cwill basically eat anything,\u201d Cullen said: spiders, moths, ants, beetles, scorpions, lizards and even small birds such as zebra finches. Like any predator, they play an important role in maintaining balance in their ecosystem.<\/p>\n For ampurtas and many other native animals, the extinction tide began when domestic cats first arrived on ships from Britain in 1788. By the late 1860s, feral cats had ravaged native bird and small animal populations across much of the continent.<\/p>\n It was then that rabbits and foxes were introduced from Europe, primarily Britain, for sport hunting. The rabbits became abundant prey for both cats and foxes that then spread across Australia\u2019s central arid zone, decimating small native mammals and nearly wiping out ampurtas.<\/p>\n The rabbits ravaged the vegetation that\u2019s important for insects, small mammals and other ampurta prey, altering these ecosystems beyond recognition. Nationwide, the damage they caused threatens some 322 Australian plants and animals, according to research published<\/a> in Pacific Conservation Biology, <\/p>\n According to Cullen, they \u201cdestroy the habitat and provide a major food source for introduced predators, with devastating consequences for native mammals.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia has the world\u2019s highest rate of mammal extinctions: 39 have disappeared forever and at least 52 others are at risk of extinction.<\/p>\n The continent lacks large, native land-based predators, and many of the extinct or threatened species were, or are, small, weighing between 35 grams and 5.5 kilograms (just over an ounce up and to 12 pounds), which is the \u201coptimal prey size\u201d for introduced predators.<\/p>\n With invasive species dramatically transforming the landscape and the ecosystem \u2014 and the local extinction of its former predator, the western quoll (Dasyures geoffroii), the ampurta has taken over the role of a mid-range or meso-predator. It now ranks just under dingoes in the hierarchy of predation, Cullen says.<\/p>\n Cullen\u2019s 2025 good-news research built on arid-zone ecologist Reece Pedler\u2019s 2016 study that tracked the dramatic increase of ampurtas caused by the \u201cindirect suppression\u201d of cats and foxes due to calicivirus.<\/p>\n By 2019, the ampurta\u2019s surging numbers prompted an improvement in conservation status from endangered to vulnerable \u2014 and in 2024, to least concern.<\/p>\n Part of this marsupial\u2019s resurgence can be attributed to an \u201cadaptive advantage\u201d to extreme temperatures. Inside their shallow burrows, ampurtas slip into torpor, what Cullen calls \u201ca daily hibernation,\u201d dropping their body temperature to as low as 10\u00b0 Celsius (50\u00b0 Fahrenheit) to slow their metabolism and conserve energy.<\/p>\n Wildlife populations in Australia\u2019s arid regions are also influenced by unpredictable rainfall, with species having evolved amid \u201cextreme boom and bust dynamics,\u201d Pavey said. Periods of heavy rain drive \u201ctrophic cascades\u201d where the landscape greens and blooms, birds come in, and rodents multiply, along with their predators. \u201cSo, all of a sudden, the ecosystem changes,\u201d with more and more varied animals.<\/p>\n When the bust period comes, Pavey said, there are usually very few animals, with those that are present confined to discrete areas of the landscape.<\/p>\n But not the ampurta: Cullen\u2019s study shows the marsupial continued its resurgence, regardless of conditions.<\/p>\n It has reoccupied huge areas of its traditional habitat. From the arrival of calicivirus after 1995 until 2016, Pedler\u2019s study reported a 70-fold increase in its potential range and a 20-fold increase in areas of that range where it actually occurs. That range now covers 189,878 square kilometers (73,312 square miles).<\/p>\n From 2015 to 2021, the ampurta\u2019s range expanded by another 48,000 km\u00b2 (about 18,500 mi\u00b2) \u2014 an area the size of Denmark \u2014 to 238,441 km\u00b2 (92,0626 mi\u00b2) in the central Australian desert.<\/p>\n The fact that a small Australian mammal that is vulnerable to predation has expanded its range so much is very unusual, Cullen said. \u201cIt\u2019s just an incredibly rare story as far as Australian mammals are concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n Cullen\u2019s study noted that \u201cRecoveries of native species are rare, often requiring intensive and costly species-specific conservation interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n The ampurta\u2019s \u201cgood-news story\u201d is even better, Pavey said, because it happened without significant local interventions.<\/p>\n However, long-term action is needed to maintain the ecological balance.<\/p>\n Study co-author and conservation biologist Richard Kingsford, who leads the UNSW Wild Desert project and supervised Cullen\u2019s Ph.D., also noted that landscape-level management of feral threats is key. \u201cIf we\u2019re really going to get our desert ecosystems back, and some of the animals that used to be in there, we\u2019ve got to really think about managing those big threats of cats and foxes at scale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Biocontrol of rabbits, which requires long-term funding commitments that aren\u2019t currently being made, remains the only practical strategy for tackling the feral cat problem at scale, the scientists say.<\/p>\n But the new research, Kingsford said, offers a supremely hopeful message for conservation.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile Australia has a particular problem with invasive species, I think the more general lesson here is that if you can manage the threats to native species from humans, whatever those threats may be \u2014 some of them direct and some of them indirect \u2014 these species will come back if they\u2019ve got the habitat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo in other parts of the world where we\u2019re cutting down forests or destroying wetlands \u2026 as long as we can bring that habitat back, we can [help] species to bounce back.\u201d<\/p>\n Banner image: An adult ampurta caught for measurements, reproductive assessment and genetic analysis during field surveys. Image by Dympna Cullen.<\/p>\n Release the cats: Training native species to fear invasive predators<\/a><\/p>\n Citations:<\/p>\n Cullen, D., Kingsford, R. T., Bino, G., West, R., Letnic, M., & Pedler, R. (2025). Bucking the trend\u202f\u2014\u202frecovery from near continent-wide extinction by a marsupial micro-predator during drought. Biological Conservation, 311, 111411. doi:10.1016\/j.biocon.2025.111411<\/a><\/p>\n Pedler, R. D., Brandle, R., Read, J. L., Southgate, R., Bird, P., & Moseby, K. E. (2016). Rabbit biocontrol and landscape\u2011scale recovery of threatened desert mammals. Conservation Biology, 30(4), 774-782. doi:10.1111\/cobi.12684<\/a><\/p>\n Kearney, S. G., Carwardine J., Reside A. E., Fisher D. O., Maron, M., Doherty, T. S., \u2026 Watson J. E. M. (2019) Corrigendum to: The threats to Australia\u2019s imperiled species and implications for a national conservation response. Pacific Conservation Biology, 25(3), 328. doi:10.1071\/pc18024_co<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2-juvenile-ampurta.jpg\")
<\/a>A juvenile ampurta captured for this study. Image by Dympna Cullen.
\nThe impact of introduced species<\/p>\n![\"Dympna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/8.-cullen-photo-jack-dickson.jpg\")
<\/a>Dympna Cullen holds the first ampurta captured during field surveys in 2019. Image by Jack Dickson.
\nA rare resurgence<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4.jpeg\")
<\/a>The feather-like tail crest used to identify ampurtas. Image by Dympna Cullen.
\nLooking to the future<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5.-Ampurta_tracks.png\")
<\/a>The distinctive tracks of ampurta in the sand offer an effective and time-efficient survey method. Image by Dympna Cullen.<\/p>\n
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