A tree-dwelling kangaroo of northeastern Australia’s rainforests.
A dark-brown body has black feet and a paler chin and belly. A tail longer than the body helps it balance on branches.
Bennett’s tree-kangaroos live among the high trees of tropical rainforest, where observers on the ground can easily miss them. Norris and Larson tested whether a drone carrying a thermal camera could help locate the species during flights originally planned to search for another mammal. The work took place at Cape Tribulation in Queensland, Australia. On 21 and 22 November 2024, they made three exploratory flights, first locating warm shapes in thermal images and then using ordinary colour images to confirm the species.
Six kangaroos were detected across 17 ha. Two were feeding on vines in the canopy during the first flight; three were seen about 800 m from the initial sighting on the next flight. Another animal appeared about 400 m away during two flights, and the authors treated those detections as one individual based on their location and timing. Dense leaves delayed confirmation in colour images, but the observed animals showed no clear response to the drone. These were brief, incidental observations at one site, not a count or density estimate for the population. The study shows how thermal drones may help future surveys of otherwise hard-to-see canopy mammals, while systematic survey methods still need to be developed.
IUCN Red List · Near Threatened (NT) · Global (Dendrolagus bennettianus)
The 2019 IUCN global assessment lists Bennett’s tree-kangaroo as Near Threatened (NT). Its reported range is about 1,500–2,500 km² of rainforest between the Daintree River and Cooktown in northeastern Queensland. Its canopy life makes it difficult to detect, and systematic population surveys had not been conducted when the 2025 study was published. That study tested thermal-drone detections and says that survey protocols still need to be developed before the method can robustly estimate population density. Queensland law also classifies the species as Near Threatened; its management principles call for habitat protection, status monitoring and research.