The Top 10 has been decided! Ensure your favourite makes it to the next round by voting here.
The people have spoken, the mammals have been chosen, and now voting is underway for the Cosmos Australian Mammal of the Year Competition.
Tuesday was our final day of nominations and mammal devotees came out to bat for their favourite species; submissions doubled from around 600 to a whopping 1,235 in the final 10 hours!
Now, we’ve finalised our shortlist of the 96 mammals competing to be crowned 2023’s Australian Mammal of the Year.
Voting is now open, and you can peruse the lists of species and vote early, and often, for your favourite! The mammals are entered according to their common name on the AMTC Australian Mammal Species List.
Some notable write-ins that just didn’t fit the bill included: “Homo sapiens”, “domestic cat”, and a single submission which stated: “I would like to nominate Max Gawn as Australian MAMIL of the year.”
The 96 lucky contenders have been sorted into one of eight new voting categories that each highlight the habitat these mammals call home.
“We’ve shifted the categories to a habitat focus this year because saving an animal isn’t just about that single species – it’s all the amazing plants and animals in the landscape that form its home,” says Cosmos magazine editor Gail MacCallum.
“Without that home, they are lost to us – and lost forever. Future generations will never get to know them.
“Of course some mammals fit into more than the single category they’ve been placed in, but this is a great chance to look at ecology and ecosystems, as well as individual mammal species,” MacCallum says.
With the voting process now underway, mammals within each habitat category are pitted against each other. Ultimately, we’ll determine our Top Ten and shift into a day-by-day knockout, with our Australian Mammal of the Year declared on Thursday August 24.
So, what are these categories anyway? I’m glad you asked!
City livin’: urban neighbours
City living is not for everyone, and this is especially true for wildlife, and yet, many tough and adaptable mammals do survive in our urban jungles, some may really surprise you! Vote for: common brushtail possum, common/eastern ringtail possum, eastern grey kangaroo, eastern quoll, grey-headed flying-fox, platypus, quenda, sugar glider, Tasmanian pademelon, water rat, western ringtail possum, and white-striped free-tailed bat. Read more here.
Just deserts: some like it hot
From the rolling red sand dunes of the Simpson Desert to the empty, seemingly endless gibber plains of the Stony Desert rangelands, the arid and semi-arid zones of Australia cover more than 70% of the landmass. Vote for: brush-tailed bettong, burrowing bettong, crest-tailed mulgara, fat-tailed dunnart, greater bilby, greater stick-nest rat, kultarr, red kangaroo, red-tailed phascogale, southern hairy-nosed wombat, southern marsupial mole, and yellow-footed rock-wallaby. Read more here.
Savanna scurriers
Sweeping and majestic tropical savannas and grasslands dominate most of northern Australia, and are the largest and most intact of their kind globally. Vote for: antilopine wallaroo, black-footed tree-rat, common rock rat, eastern pebble-mound mouse, ghost bat, golden bandicoot, long-tailed planigale, northern hairy-nosed wombat, northern quoll, orange diamond-faced bat, scaly-tailed possum, and spectacled hare-wallaby. Read more here.
Snow patrol: alpine adventurers
Mammals living in the cold, mountainous areas of Victoria, NSW, and the ACT have adapted to survive in some of the toughest, most changeable, and hostile environments. Vote for: agile antechinus, bare-nosed wombat, broad-toothed rat, bush rat, dingo, dusky antechinus, little forest bat, mountain brushtail possum, mountain pygmy possum, short-beaked echidna, smoky mouse, and swamp wallaby. Read more here.
The cool south: forest fossickers
Cooler, wetter forests and temperate rainforests can be found throughout southern Australia and in more elevated or southern areas of Queensland. Vote for: large-footed myotis, golden-tipped bat, long-nosed potoroo, koala, Leadbeater’s possum, narrow-toed feathertail glider, quokka, southern greater glider, southern long-nosed bandicoot, spotted-tailed quoll, Tasmanian devil, and yellow-bellied glider. Read more here.
Tropical rainforest ramblers
Rainforests covered most of Australia until about 20 million years ago, but tropical rainforest is now confined to northern and eastern high rainfall regions of Australia. Vote for: atherton antechinus, Australian spotted cuscus, bare-backed fruit-bat, bennett’s tree-kangaroo, Christmas Island flying-fox, Christmas Island shrew, Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo, musky rat-kangaroo, prehensile-tailed rat, red-legged pademelon, spectacled flying-fox, and torresian striped possum. Read more here.
Under the sea: marine marvels
Australia is surrounded by magnificent oceans and ringed by coral and rocky reefs, kelp and seagrass beds, and mangrove-lined estuaries. Vote for: Australian fur seal, Australian sea lion, Australian snubfin dolphin, blue whale, dugong, dwarf minke whale, false killer whale, humpback whale, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, killer whale, southern elephant seal, and southern right whale. Read more here.
Woodland wanderers
Woodlands are a quintessential Australian environment with trees that typically do not grow very close together, often dominated by eucalypts and wattles, over understorey layers of grasses, shrubs, and other plants. Vote for: brush-tailed phascogale, brush-tailed rock wallaby, southern bent-wing bat, eastern barred bandicoot, Kangaroo Island dunnart, Gilbert’s Potoroo, honey possum, eastern pygmy possum, mahogany glider, New Holland mouse, northern bettong, and numbat. Read more here.