A few weeks ago I went to Merrylands Central Gardens Nature Reserve with a friend from Brazil (who had never seen a kangaroo before) and my brother’s family (four kids aged 8-14). I’m so amazed that this free mini zoo exists and impressed by how many Australian animals it contains. It was very hard to sketch at the time with the kids wanting to keep moving but I did manage these quick loose drawings at the time.

Back home I did some sketches from photos. (Hmm, emus are lots of fun to draw and so are boobook owls).

I then did some research on three of the animals we saw in the nocturnal house. I know about bandicoots and potoroos but I had never come across a bettong before.  My nieces and nephews said they look like a mini-kangaroo with a possum head. There is no doubt that they are very cute. Check out two YouTube videos here and here.

And while thinking about Australian marsupials – this is the time of the year when I always think about bilbies as I have a tradition of buying a chocolate bilby every Easter.

Last year I sketched a foreshortened bilby (see here). but this year I was more interested in comparing them with bettongs. (The comparison sketch is a bit of a guess!)

I’m really happy that I now know about bettongs!

Let me know in the comments below if you live in Australia and have been ignorant about them as well.