The eastern bettong is a small Tasmanian marsupial that carries nesting material with its long tail. It leaves its grass nest at night to forage on fungi, seeds and other foods.
Its upper body is yellowish gray and its underside is white. The tail is about as long as the head and body combined.
After being absent from mainland Australia for about a century, the eastern bettong was reintroduced to Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary near Canberra. The 485-hectare reserve was fenced in 2009 to exclude predators and support the return of native mammals. Bettongs were reintroduced there in 2012.
During a 2014 field study, researchers recorded bettong diggings at 36 sites. The animals make small pits while searching underground for fungi and other food, disturbing the woodland soil as they forage. Pits occurred beneath tree canopies and in open grassy areas; the team also recorded feeding activity in badly degraded bare patches.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Eastern bettongs disappeared from mainland Australia for about 100 years before being reintroduced to Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary near Canberra. The 485-hectare reserve is fenced to exclude predators. In a five-month 2014 study across 36 sites, bettongs at a density of 0.3–0.4 animals per hectare made 55% of the recorded foraging pits; the rest were attributed to echidnas, birds and feral rabbits. Their digging was estimated to move 985 kg of soil per hectare per year. Digging was more frequent where available phosphorus and Acacia basal area were higher and kangaroo grazing lower. The authors describe this soil disturbance as a possible way to restore ecological processes in temperate grassy woodland degraded by livestock grazing.