It is common to see some of these creatures scurrying away as you explore Paronella Park!

Miniopterus Australia (Little Bentwing Bat)

Description
Body weight is 5 to 9 grams, forearm 36-42mm. Greyish-brown in colour, slightly paler belly. Short ears, domed head. Wing structure differs from other bats; end section of third finger (wing tip) 4 times length of middle section, giving the appearance of a bent wing.

Habitat
Rainforest, open forest, coastal scrub, mangroves. Cape York, Qld, to Taree, NSW. New guinea, south east Asia.

Flight Pattern
Swift, manoeuvrable, in, around and under forest canopy. Often flies along tracks and roads through rainforest.

Notes
Forms large colonies in Summer when young are born. Roosts in dense clusters, particularly in Winter; can be inactive for several days. Throughout the day, they sit in a meditative state, at night they fly to find food.

Feeding
This species of micro bat can eat up to half of their body weight in insects, including flies, ants, moths and wasps. They will fly within a 40 km radius(or thereabouts) to find this food, usually travelling about 200 km within that radius.

Pteropus conspicillatus (Spectacled Flying Fox)

Description
Wingspan more than 1m, weight from 400 to 900 grams. Black and grey in colour, with a cream patch on the back of the neck from the ears to shoulders. The eyes are encircled by a wide ring of pale yellow fur extending along muzzle. This species of flying fox has no tail.

Habitat
Confined to coast and ranges. Camps in rainforest or nearby swampy areas, occasionally seen in open forest. From Cape York to Cardwell

Flight pattern
At dusk, flies towards feeding grounds, travelling at 25-35 km per hour, and between 20-100 metres high. Flyout direction forms patterns that change due to food availability.

Notes
In breeding season, From September to December, females often succumb to paralysis tick and fall to the ground. This species of flying fox is considered ‘at risk'.

Alectura lathami - (Australian Brush Turkey)

Other Names
Brush Turkey, Scrub Turkey, Wild Turkey

Description
Length of 60-70 cms. Black in colour, some dark grey scallops on under side; head and neck skin red, yellow wattle around neck, the male has a larger hanging wattle than the female. The chicks are mustard brown in colour.

Habitat
Closed forest, or dense vegeation. From Cape York, Queensland to Woolongong, NSW. It's numbers have greatly depleted because of the ectivities of illegal shooters, but there are many places where it is still plentiful.

Notes
Eggs incubated in large mounds of vegetable matter built by male. As many as 30 eggs may be found in one mound.

Bandicoot

They are solitary, strictly terrestrial, and all have quite long pointed heads and compact bodies.
The forelimbs are generally short and the hindlimbs resemble those of macropods.
They have a powerful thigh, an elongated foot, and its axis is continued into a large clawed fourth toe.

They have a short tail with little or no function in locomotion.
Bandicoots are about 50cm overall. They have brown fur above and creamy white fur on the belly.
Bandicoots are often mistaken for rats, but actually more closely resemble rabbits. They are about the size of rabbits, they hop like rabbits and they breed even faster than rabbits.

Morelia amethistina - (Amethystine Python)

As one of the ‘giant’ snakes, it has been recorded at a length of up to 8.5 metres (28 ft), found near Gordonvale, but are more frequently found at lengths of 3-5m (10-16 ft).
It acquires its name from the fact that when viewed from certain angles in direct sunlight, it displays an Amethyst coloured shine all over its body.
It is a slender python for its size and is not able to kill large animals that the related Anaconda of South America and the Pythons of Africa and Asia can.

Dendrelaphis punctulata - (Green Tree Snake)

These snakes are found in the northern tropics and eastern Australia.
If handled, this snake can produce an unpleasant odour and will bite for a final attempt at defence. Yet, its teeth are tiny and the bite is harmless, as the Green Tree Snake has no fangs. The Green Tree Snake eats small reptiles and frogs (engulfing them head first) and even the occasional fish.

Oecophylla smaragdina (Green Tree Ant)

General Information
The green tree ant belongs to the ant genus Oecophylla , which consists of only two species; 1. longinoda and 2. smaragdina . Oecophylla smaragdina is found in the tropical coastal areas in Australia as far south as Rockhampton and across the coastal tropics of the Northern Territory down to Broome in West Australia. Green ants are also often referred to as weaver ants because of their ability to weave leaves together to form nests bound with silk produced by their larvae. Most of the nest construction and weaving is conducted at night with major workers weaving towards the exterior of the nests and minor workers weaving within the interior.

A mature colony of green tree ants can hold as many as 100,000 to 500,000 workers and may span as many as 12 trees and contain as many as 150 nests. Green ant colonies have one queen and a colony can live for up to eight years. Minor workers usually remain within the egg chambers of the nest tending the larvae, whereas major workers defend the colony territory, assist with the care of the queen and forage.

Mimetic relationships between spiders and ants (Chemical Mimicry)
Several species of spider live with green ants such as the salticid spider Cosmophasis bitaeniata . Salticid spiders, or jumping spiders, as they are sometimes referred to, have excellent eyesight and are only active during daylight, weaving a protective silken cocoon to spend the night in. Interestingly, this spider does not look like green ants but instead it chemically mimics green tree ants.