iconic cute fluffy and sometimes even
deadly native animals some that
instantly come to mind are the Koala the
kangaroo the Tasmanian Devil the
platypus
the kookaburra and some of the most
deadly snakes and spiders around the
world but there’s always one that sort
of goes under the radar
it sort of slips everyone’s mind it
looks somewhat like a little bear
it’s the wombat it eats mainly grass
roots
it lives in burrows under the ground
something is quite unique and funny
about them is they have square-shaped
through their Vaughn halos which is
adorable and living their mother’s pouch
now the oldest and largest wombat in
captivity is Patrick who’s 30 years old
and lives at Ballarat wildlife park now
you might be wondering what’s so
important about warm bats well there are
three species of wombats in Australia
the northern hairy-nosed which lives in
Queensland the southern Harry NoZe which
is found mainly in South Australia and
the banner is one bat which was formerly
known as the common wombat and it
spreads across New South Wales Victoria
and Tasmania now all three of these
species have suffered population decline
over the years due to hunting dog
attacks urban development and disease
disease in particular would be suck
optic mange which affects two of the
three species it affects the banner is
one bat and southern hairy-nosed wombat
which is probably a good thing because
what causes the mange is a mine and if
it found its way into the small
population of northern hairy-nosed will
mats that are left the species would
probably be wiped out so Sarcoptes
scabiei is the name of the mine and it
invests over 104 mammals worldwide this
includes dogs livestock input and
wildlife and even humans in humans it’s
called scabies so what happens is the
mite berries into them the wombat skin
and causes the skin to get all scabby
and crusted and goes over the eyes and
the ears of the wombat which basically
leaves the wombat defenseless the one
back then scratches which causes
secondary infections for example blood
poisoning and it never bleep the animal
dies it’s very hard to treat this
because there is no
vaccine there is a topical treatment
however it is very hard to treat an
entire species with this because the
mite is transferred via contact so is
thought to be brought in by your
European settlers however there is no
not there’s a limited in-depth research
supporting this it is becoming a very
serious problem with localized
extinction
so without the delorean project I
probably wouldn’t have had the freedom
and opportunity to opportunity to work
with so many amazing scientists at the
University of the Sunshine Coast one but
one in particular would be to make a
Frazer who was my supervisor together we
work through samples of mites ranging
from one bats that were healthy and
super mangy and we identified the number
of mites associated with the disease
what we found is that the process used
to take these samples was not a hundred
percent effective which means that early
diagnosis and possibly treatment was is
lost this is a real-world project and I
am so proud and honored to be part of
this is not every day a fifteen-year-old
can say that she’s identified mites down
on mic Reserve conducted DNA extractions
and understands DNA sequencing for a
real-world problem it is our job it is
our responsibility to look after these
beautiful creatures and at the moment
we’re actually doing a pretty horrible
job these creatures are looking at the
possibility that being extinct in a
hundred years
in foot so we can’t study them we can’t
look at them we don’t need a repeat of
the Tasmanian tiger or anything else
that has gone extinct for that matter
this has been a truly enlightening and
eye-opening experience and I wouldn’t
change it for the world it may not be
the traditional educational system but I
have learnt so much about about mange
and it’s the skills I have gained
something that you wouldn’t learn in school thank you for listening