The bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is a medium-sized marsupial that is best known for its rabbit-like ears. It has long, silky blue-grey fur and a long tail that is black with a white tip. The bilby is light and delicate in build but with strongly clawed toes for digging burrows.
Bilbies are solitary, nocturnal animals, spending daylight hours in their deep, spiral shaped burrows and emerging at night to forage for plant roots, bulbs, fungi, grass seeds, termites, ants, beetles, insect larvae and spiders.
Dalgyte and Ninu are just two of the many Indigenous names for the bilby. It is also commonly known as the greater bilby, to differentiate it from the extinct lesser bilby Macrotis leucra.
The bilby is a threatened species under State and Commonwealth legislation. In Western Australia, the species is listed as Vulnerable fauna under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. Nationally it is also listed as Vulnerable under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and internationally is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Vulnerable.
Report any sightings of bilbies by sending an email or a fauna report form, with a photo of the animal, if you have one, to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Refer to the 
Bilby fauna profileinformation sheet for more information about bilbies.
Illustration of the North (N) and South (S) portioning of ecological and land use threats (click to enlarge) – Image from Bradley et al, 2015.Historically, the bilby was found across most of the arid and semi-arid areas of mainland Australia. Since European settlement, the species has experienced a large decline. In Western Australia, it is now restricted to the Gibson, Little Sandy and Great Sandy Deserts, and parts of the Pilbara, Dampierland, Central Kimberley and Ord-Victoria Plains bioregions. It also occurs across to the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory, and there are disjunct subpopulations in the Channel Country and Mitchell Grass Downs bioregions in Queensland.
The bilby continues to occupy a wide range of vegetation types, with the major vegetation types defines as:
Refer to NatureMap for further information regarding the distribution of this species.
Pavey, C. (2006). National Recovery Plan for the Greater Bilby (Macrotis lagostis). Northern Territory: Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts.
The Recovery Plan outlines actions that are being implemented to improve the conservation status of the bilby:
The National Bilby Recovery Team, with membership including the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, was re-established in 2016 to guide the recovery actions undertaken for bilby conservation.
The Department is the key agent undertaking research on the bilby in Western Australia, with a focus on improving ecological and distributional information to inform adaptive management practices.
The Pilbara bilby research program, funded by environmental offsets derived from resource development, is supported by several mining companies, environmental consultancies, CSIRO and traditional owner groups.
A coordinated Kimberley bilby program is being established, and will build on the existing work of WWF, Environs Kimberly, Rangeland NRM, Kimberley Land Council and numerous traditional owner ranger groups. Both programs are focusing on bilby distributional survey, population monitoring and adaptive threat abatement activities at a landscape scale.
Successful reintroductions have been undertaken in South Australia, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland, including into fenced enclosures and onto islands. A national captive breeding program, as part of a Zoo and Aquarium Association conservation program, has been running since 1995.
Surveys for the threatened greater bilby may be required in WA where development or land management activities are proposed that could potentially affect the species and/or habitat suitable for the species. Guidelines have been developed for detecting current or recent presence, or asserting the absence of bilbies, and assessing the importance of the habitat proposed to be impacted. The latest version of the guidelines and a datasheet are provided below. Please note that these guidelines will be subject to change as new information about bilbies becomes available.
Bilby sign plot datasheet469.38 KB