{"id":248819,"date":"2026-01-24T01:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/248819\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T01:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:53:08","slug":"woman-recording-her-swim-accidentally-captures-video-of-extremely-rare-animal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/248819\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman Recording Her Swim Accidentally Captures Video Of Extremely Rare Animal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, a resident of Tasmania, Australia, named Mel decided to go swimming in the freezing water surrounding the island. To prove to her friends and family that she\u2019d taken a dip in the freezing ocean, she left her phone on the beach to record her swim.<\/p>\n

While she was in the water, she suddenly found herself surrounded by stingrays. She excitedly ran to shore to grab her phone and snap a photo of the rays, but quickly realized there was another animal on the beach with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only then that I realized there was a quoll<\/a> standing in front of my phone, getting recorded,\u201d Mel, who preferred to have her last name omitted, told The Dodo.<\/p>\n

\"cuteTikTok \/ @adventuresaremything<\/p>\n

Spotted-tailed quolls are a unique, adorable species native to Australia. They belong to a family of carnivorous marsupials called Dasyuridae along with Tasmanian devils.<\/p>\n

Quolls are known for their adorable pink noses and fuzzy tails \u2014 but don\u2019t be fooled by their cute exterior. As the second-largest carnivorous marsupials in Australia, spotted-tailed quolls have one of the strongest bites of any meat-eating animal in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was way cuter than expected, and really kind of cat- or mouse-like,\u201d Mel said.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, spotted-tailed quolls are considered endangered in mainland Australia and vulnerable in Tasmania. Given how rare quolls are, Mel was shocked that one just happened to wander in front of her camera.<\/p>\n

\u201c[There are] hundreds of people whose [life’s] work it is to find wild spotted quolls and you just have one photo bomb you,\u201d one commenter wrote below Mel\u2019s TikTok.<\/p>\n

Mel watched from a respectful distance as the quoll hung around right in front of her phone, seemingly unbothered by her presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looked like it was digging or sniffing around for something, but I\u2019m not sure what,\u201d Mel said.<\/p>\n

After a little while, the adorable marsupial scampered away, and Mel was able to retrieve her phone to go over the footage she\u2019d accidentally captured.<\/p>\n

Mel was delighted to have gotten a close look at such a rare, unique animal. More than anything, she feels grateful to live in a place that values its unique wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was just, like, a really cool and unexpected event,\u201d Mel said. \u201c[W]e\u2019re so lucky in Tasmania that the community looks after its environment, which allows this to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Adventure<\/a>Adventure Guide Stunned When Penguin Jumps Into Her Kayak And Gives Her A HugHe was asking for help.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The other day, a resident of Tasmania, Australia, named Mel decided to go swimming in the freezing water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[4140,1178,111,139,69,16531,147,1177,1175,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-248819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-alana-francis-crow","9":"tag-daily-dodo","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-quolls","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-standard","16":"tag-the-dodo","17":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}