WAIT,
really?
A quokka is a small wallaby, about the size of a house cat. Most of the world’s quokkas live on one island, Rottnest, off the coast of Perth, with a few small groups left on the Western Australian mainland. They are marsupials, so the joey grows in a pouch. They come out mostly at night, eat leaves and grass, and the shape of their jaw makes them look like they are smiling.
Below is what the research says about them, with a source under every fact.
BORN
The first months are the strangest.
0.38 grams
A newborn quokka weighs about a third of a gram. In one directly observed case, the whole pregnancy took 25 to 26 days.
Source
Shield, J. (1968). Reproduction of the quokka in captivity. Journal of Zoology.
It finds the pouch by gravity
Born almost embryonic, the newborn climbs to the pouch on its own. A 1976 experiment found gravity was the only cue it used.
Source
Cannon, Bakker, Bradshaw & McDonald (1976). Nature.
Eyes open after almost four months
The joey develops in the pouch with its eyes shut until roughly day 110.
Source
Developmental Brain Research (1997).
8× in the milk, 20× in the liver
While the joey is pouch-bound, the milk carries about eight times the iron of the mother’s blood plasma. By day 180 the joey’s liver holds nearly twenty times hers.
Source
Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology (1986).
LIVING
Day to day, on an island with no cars.
Night shift
Mostly active at night. What you saw at noon was a nap.
Source
Rottnest Island Authority, quokka spotting and wildlife pages.
Months without drinking
In the dry season it can go months without drinking, living on moisture from plants. It also climbs to about head height for leaves.
Source
WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions; Rottnest Island Authority.
The tail is the pantry
Quokkas store fat in the tail and draw on it when food runs short.
Source
Australian Government, DCCEEW species profile: Setonix brachyurus (2023).
Not smiling at you
The upturned mouth is the shape of the jaw. It looks the same whether the animal is calm, frightened or hungry. Read the distance, not the face.
Source
Rottnest Island Authority visitor guidance.
Two thirds vs 14 percent
In tourist areas two thirds of quokkas let a person within one metre. In quieter parts of the island, 14%. Letting you close is habituation, not affection.
Source
Murdoch University, Animal Conservation (2017).
Feeding is prohibited
On Rottnest, feeding or touching a quokka is an on-the-spot fine. Human food can make them ill and change how they behave.
Source
Rottnest Island Authority, Protect our wildlife; Rottnest Island Regulations 1988.
She keeps a spare
While one joey is in the pouch, a second embryo waits on pause. If the first is lost, the backup starts developing.
Source
Shield (1968), Journal of Zoology; Sharman (1955).
NAMED
Wild cat, rat, vermin, celebrity. Same animal the whole time.
First seen, called a wild cat
Samuel Volckertzoon’s crew described it as a wild cat resembling a civet: only the second European record of an Australian marsupial.
Source
de Tores et al. (2007), Conservation Science Western Australia.
Named after a rat's nest
Willem de Vlamingh took the quokkas for giant rats and called the island ‘t Eylandt ‘t Rottenest. The name stuck.
Source
Rottnest Island Authority, history of Wadjemup.
Ban-gup · Bungeup · Quak-a · Kwoka
Recorded Noongar names for the animal. “Quokka” is one of them.
Source
de Tores et al. (2007), Conservation Science Western Australia.
Officially vermin
Before the 1930s quokka hunting on the mainland was described as a familiar sport. In 1933 Western Australia classed the species as vermin.
Source
de Tores et al. (2007), Conservation Science Western Australia.
COUNTED
Fewer than the internet thinks.
What emptied the mainland
The main cause of the mainland collapse was predation by the introduced red fox, later compounded by habitat loss and changed fire regimes. Not tourists.
Source
de Tores et al. (2007), Conservation Science Western Australia.
41,200 → 17,800
Square kilometres of known mainland range, historical versus 1992. Surviving mainland groups are often a few dozen animals.
Source
de Tores et al. (2007), Conservation Science Western Australia.
823,441 visitors
People who arrived on Rottnest by ferry in 2023–24, to an island with roughly ten to twelve thousand quokkas. Around eighty visitors per animal, per year.
Source
Rottnest Island Authority, Annual Report 2023–24.
Vulnerable
The animal the internet decided was the happiest is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, reassessed in 2025.
Source
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Setonix brachyurus (2025).
594 → 97
Estimated quokkas in the area of the 2015 Northcliffe bushfire, before and one year after. Five years on: 272, under half the original.
Source
International Journal of Wildland Fire (2023).
If a figure here goes out of date, write to us and we fix it. Three percent of every order goes to quokka habitat and conservation work.