But Rachel Lowry, the chief executive of Bush Heritage Australia, believes the brush-tailed phascogales will prove to be the dark horse of the competition. Lowry is confident the species\u2019 many \u201cquirks\u201d will win people over, along with its fashionable tuft of silky black hair on its tail.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a lot of people realise this is a species where the males literally mate themselves to death,\u201d Lowry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce they start to discover the joys of copulation, they just keep mating. They forget to eat and then they drain their energy and they die.\u201d<\/p>\n Lowry has been campaigning on Bush Heritage Australia\u2019s social media pages to get the brush-tailed phascogale into the top 10 and raise money to support its conservation.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve lost over half their home range due to habitat loss,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cWe are not sure what kind of a chance they\u2019re going to have unless we raise their profile.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they make it into the top 10 \u2026 it means we get to keep connecting landscapes and regenerating native corridors and protecting tree hollows, which is what these little guys need if they\u2019re going to stand a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Almost every marsupial in the running is in need of support \u2013 the competition\u2019s website classifies each species from \u201cDoing OK\u201d to \u201cIn some trouble\u201d and \u201cIn serious trouble\u201d. Only three \u2013 the Tasmanian pademelon, marsupial mole and the long-tailed planigale \u2013 are categorised as \u201cDoing OK\u201d.<\/p>\n But the gerbil-like northern bettong is \u201cright on the brink of extinction\u201d, Joey Clarke from Australian Wildlife Conservancy warns.<\/p>\n Clarke said northern bettongs, which look like miniature wallabies hopping around the forest, once had four populations but 20 years ago two of those were \u201cblinked out\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cToday the remaining population in the world are on two sites,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of those populations is down to between 10 and 30 individuals, so it is literally right on the edge of disappearing. The other has a few hundred.\u201d<\/p>\n The northern bettong has a preference for open eucalypt forest on the edge of rainforests \u2013 a niche habitat and one that has declined because of land clearing.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout intervention, this is a species that could very easily disappear, not just within our lifetimes, but within the next couple of decades,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n After a two-week public vote, the marsupial of the year top 10 will be announced and fundraising campaigns will be launched for each. The winner will be announced on Monday 30 September.<\/p>\n The Project\u2019s executive producer, Chris Bendall, says the aim is to raise as much money as possible for conservation organisations, saying they are \u201camazing people doing amazing work to help save these animals, but they need the funds to do it\u201d.<\/p>\n Bendall hopes voters \u201cconsider some of the lesser known and more endangered animals when they cast their vote\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would love this competition to make people more curious about our native marsupials because they are unlike anywhere else in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf at the end of all this people are just that little bit prouder and more informed about our natural heritage, that can only be a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n