News Animals

Endangered northern bettongs aren’t picky truffle eaters

The marsupials’ varied diet could help safeguard some of Australia’s fungi and forests

northern Australian bettong

FUNGUS LOVER  The northern bettong (shown) helps create the wide variety of truffle-producing fungi found in Australia by eating the fungi and spreading their spores in its scat, a new study suggests.

© Stephanie Todd

By Laurel Hamers

- More than 2 years ago

A small endangered marsupial with a taste for truffles may be a linchpin in one kind of Australian forest — and the evidence is in the animal’s poop.