page_title: Northern nail-tail wallaby
section_title: Distribution and habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Northern nail-tail wallaby / Distribution and habitat
caption_attribution_description: Onychogalea unguifera
context_page_description: The northern or sandy nail-tail wallaby is a species of macropod found across northern Australia on arid and sparsely wooded plains.
  The largest species of the genus Onychogalea, it is a solitary and nocturnal herbivorous browser that selects its food from a wide variety of grasses and succulent plant material. Distinguished by a slender and long-limbed form that resembles the typical and well known kangaroos, although their standing height is shorter, around half of one metre, and their weight is less than nine kilograms. As with some medium to large kangaroo species, such as Osphranter rufus, they have an unusual pentapedal motion at slow speeds by stiffening the tail for a fifth limb. When fleeing a disturbance, they hop rapidly with the tail curled back and repeatedly utter the sound "wuluhwuluh". Their exceptionally long tail has a broad fingernail-like protuberance beneath a dark crest of hair at its end, a peculiarity of the genus that is much broader than the other species. The name unguifera, meaning claw, is a reference to this extraordinary attribute, the purpose of which is unknown.
context_section_description: An endemic species of northern Australia that favours a diverse range of arid habitat and may be common at some locations in its broad distribution range. They occur in the northern parts of the continent, generally inland from the coastline, from the east at Cape York Peninsula, through the Top End and through the Kimberley region to the northwestern coast. The areas occupied by Onychogalea unguifera are patchily distributed within the large range, sometimes locally common or abundant at favoured sites, and this has not known to have been greatly altered since the later 20th century.
  The habitat occupied by O. unguifera is most often areas dominated by tussocks of tough grasses or low shrubby plant species, vegetation interspersed with occasional trees over arid landscapes, and especially associated with the meeting of clay soils at sandy loams. The marsupial is also recorded at dense stands of Melaleuca species.
  The conservation status of the species was assessed for the IUCN Red List in 2015 as least concern. The population size is presumed to be large, occurs in a wide range that include conservation reserves, and is not known to be declining at a rate that threatens the species with extinction.
  The favoured habitat is not commonly found in the protected areas of the Northern Territory or Queensland, and the species is almost unknown in conservation zones in Western Australia; this may make O. unguifera vulnerable to threatening factors resulting from alterations to land use and fire regimes.
  The red fox (Vulpes vulpes), deliberately introduced during colonisation and a predator of O. unguifera, is thought to have extirpated their southerly distribution range. As the fox extended its own range to the central regions of Australia, the mammal has had a major impact on the endemic population of small to medium-sized mammals, and this is recognised as a potential threatening factor if the red fox advances to the north of Australia.
  Research conducted by consultation with Aboriginal people of northern Australia, who are well acquainted and with the animal and capture it for food, indicated a stable population with only a slight decline in Arnhem Land.
  Native predators might include Crocodylus johnstoni, a smaller crocodile that occurs in fresh water, which is known to be able to consume this larger species when dead and perhaps able to capture it when alive.
  The remains of O. unguifera, preserved as subfossils, have been found in the Grampians region of western Victoria. Fossilised material located at a coastal site of the Montebello area, a sandplain now submerged by the sea, reveals the species once occupied areas south of the Kimberley.
  The northern nail-tail wallaby is reported to have been deliberately released at Wilsons Promontory in Victoria during 1924, in a misguided attempt to introduce the species to the area.
caption: Lithograph by Henry C. Richter, published by John Gould in the mid-18th century
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