Peculiar Creature #5: The Bilby

This animal comes in 3 delicious chocolate flavors: milk, dark, and white. Sounds like Valentine’s Day- I know I want one! The chocolate bilby is the equivalent of an American Easter chocolate bunny, because the bilby is the symbol of Easter in Australia in an attempt to de-Americanize the holiday (What did the Easter Bilby bring you this year?).

The real bilby that’s not made from cacao and dairy products is a marsupial the size of a rabbit with abnormally large ears, giving the animal an acute sense of hearing to make up for what it lacks in sight. Its eyes are very bad, although it is a nocturnal animal. It inhabits arid areas of Australia, most commonly desert regions. The bilby has very strong claws and is able to burrow into the ground very quickly, which serves as a sort of defense mechanism against its main predators, which include mostly birds of prey, especially owls. The bilby also uses its claws for food, and it gets most of its water from food since water is scarce is desert climates. The bilby is mousy in appearance, with long ears, a long snout, and their personalities are commonly solitary and territorial. Unfortunately, the bilby is nearing extinction, though it used to inhabit more than 70 percent of the Australian continent. Other animals have taken over the bilby habitats, and their populations have declined also due to hunting for food and for pelts. Droughts have a heavier effect due to competition with other animals, and fire patterns have changed which have altered their habitats significantly. The bilby is a protected animal in Australia, and is most famous for its association with Easter. In case you’d like to order some chocolate bilbies for this upcoming Easter, here’s a link that allows you to do so:
http://www.easterbilby.com.au/save_bilby/chocolate.asp

save the bilbies for a delectable price of only $5.95!