The numbat is the Australian mammal known for hunting termites mainly during daylight hours.
The numbat is a small, striped marsupial native to southwestern Australia. Unlike most Australian marsupials, it is primarily active during the day. This schedule allows it to follow the daily activity of its main food, termites, which it locates using smell and digs from soil, leaf litter, and rotting wood.
A numbat can eat thousands of termites in a day. It uses a long, narrow snout and a very long sticky tongue to reach insects in narrow spaces. Numbats do not have a conventional pouch; the young cling to the mother’s underside and later shelter in a nest.
Once widespread across southern Australia, numbats lost much of their range through land clearing and introduced predators, especially foxes and cats. Conservation programs now protect remaining populations and restore habitat. The numbat is Western Australia’s faunal emblem.