Quolls are generalist predators that eat a remarkably wide range of prey, from large possums and rabbits down to beetles, larvae, and frogs. Scat analyses across multiple species consistently show that mammals form the backbone of the diet for larger quolls, while insects dominate for smaller species. But what any individual quoll actually eats on a given night depends heavily on which of the six quoll species it belongs to, what season it is, and whether it lives in dense forest, rocky escarpment, or open woodland.
The Big Picture Across Species
Australia’s quolls span a wide size range, from the northern quoll at roughly 300–900 grams to the spotted-tailed (tiger) quoll, which can exceed 4 kilograms in males. That size difference matters enormously for diet. A reintroduction study analyzing quoll scats found evidence of macropods, small mammals, birds, invertebrates, fish, reptiles, and frogs in their diet, illustrating just how broad the menu can be.1PubMed Central. Finding food in a novel environment: The diet of a reintroduced endangered meso-predator to mainland Australia, with notes on foraging behaviour The general pattern across species is that larger quolls lean heavily on vertebrate prey, especially medium-sized mammals, while the smaller species rely more on invertebrates. But all quolls are opportunistic, meaning they adjust what they eat based on what is available.
What Spotted-Tailed Quolls Hunt
The spotted-tailed quoll (also called the tiger quoll) is the largest surviving marsupial carnivore on mainland Australia, and its diet reflects that status. Studies in eastern Australia consistently find that medium-sized mammals, roughly in the 500-gram to 7-kilogram range, form the bulk of what these quolls eat. The most frequently consumed prey items include greater gliders, rabbits, bandicoots, red-necked pademelons, ringtail possums, and brushtail possums.2Journal of Zoology. Diet of the spotted‐tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) in eastern Australia: effects of season, sex and size Medium-sized prey contributed more than 80 percent of the total biomass consumed, according to one detailed scat analysis.3Wildlife Research. Diet of the tiger quoll (Dasyurus maculatus)
Other prey turn up less regularly but are still noteworthy: antechinus (small native mice), bush rats, echidnas, wombats, birds, invertebrates, and reptiles all appeared in scat studies.3Wildlife Research. Diet of the tiger quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) That a quoll weighing a few kilograms can take down an echidna or scavenge a wombat carcass speaks to both its predatory ability and its willingness to eat whatever opportunity provides. This species is also notably arboreal for a predator of its size, climbing trees to hunt possums and gliders in their dens. That tree-climbing habit may actually help it coexist with foxes and feral cats, which tend to hunt on the ground.
How Sex and Size Shape What Gets Eaten
Male spotted-tailed quolls can be roughly twice the body mass of females, and that size gap translates directly into dietary differences. Research on spotted-tailed quolls before and after a major wildfire found that while both sexes relied heavily on medium-sized mammals, the larger males showed a preference for brushtail possums, while the smaller females were more likely to take rabbits and hares.4Wildlife Research. Diet of a native carnivore, the spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus), before and after an intense wildfire Brushtail possums can be formidable prey, hissing and scratching when cornered, so it makes sense that the larger males are better equipped to handle them.
This sexual size dimorphism means that a single quoll population effectively exploits multiple prey niches. Males and females are hunting in the same forest but targeting partly different animals, which reduces direct competition between the sexes for food. It is a pattern seen in other predators worldwide, but it is especially pronounced in quolls because of how dramatic the size difference between the sexes can be.
Eastern Quolls and Their Insect-Heavy Diet
The eastern quoll, now extinct on mainland Australia but surviving in Tasmania, tells a very different dietary story. Research on eastern quolls in southern Tasmania found that insects made up the bulk of the diet and appeared in 97 percent of droppings examined.5Wildlife Research. Diet of the Eastern Native-Cat, Dasyurus Viverrinus (Shaw), in Southern Tasmania While eastern quolls will eat small vertebrates when they get the chance, they are fundamentally insectivores in terms of sheer volume consumed. Beetles, caterpillars, and particularly the larvae of corbie moths (a type of native moth) feature prominently.
This reliance on invertebrates makes the eastern quoll particularly vulnerable to environmental disruption. Research into the species’ statewide decline in Tasmania found that dietary niche contracted during winter and early spring, when insect larvae formed the dominant food source, leaving quolls exposed to weather-related drops in insect availability.6Wildlife Research. Mechanisms of climate-change-induced species decline: spatial, temporal and long-term variation in the diet of an endangered marsupial carnivore, the eastern quoll A bad winter for corbie larvae could mean a bad winter for eastern quolls. That study’s authors linked a significant statewide population crash in 2001–2003 to weather-driven fluctuations in larval abundance, highlighting how diet composition can be the hinge on which a species’ survival turns.
Northern Quolls and Habitat-Driven Differences
Northern quolls, the smallest species, eat a mix of invertebrates, small mammals, reptiles, and fruit. But what they eat shifts substantially depending on where they live. Research comparing northern quolls in rocky escarpments with those in savanna woodlands found that escarpment quolls consumed a significantly higher proportion of mammals and fed within a narrower dietary niche than their woodland-dwelling counterparts.7Wildlife Research. Rocky escarpment versus savanna woodlands: comparing diet and body condition as indicators of habitat quality for the endangered northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) Rocky habitats may concentrate small mammal prey in crevices and sheltered spots, making them easier to catch, while woodland quolls have to cast a wider net across more dispersed food sources.
This habitat effect matters for conservation planning. If rocky escarpment quolls have better body condition because they can specialize on high-quality mammalian prey, then protecting rocky habitats may be disproportionately important for the species. It also means that quoll populations in different landscapes are not interchangeable from a management perspective: they have distinct ecological roles and face distinct nutritional pressures.
Seasonal Swings in Diet
Quolls do not eat the same things year-round. Seasonal variation in diet was marked in spotted-tailed quolls, with insects and reptiles being consumed more frequently in summer and mammals more frequently in winter.2Journal of Zoology. Diet of the spotted‐tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) in eastern Australia: effects of season, sex and size This makes intuitive sense. Insect and reptile activity peaks in warmer months, so a quoll foraging in summer encounters more beetles, skinks, and geckos. In winter, those prey become scarce or dormant, and quolls switch to hunting mammals, which remain active year-round.
The seasonal pattern was mirrored in the relative volumes consumed, not just in how often different prey types appeared. Summer scats contained more insect material by volume; winter scats were denser with mammalian hair and bone. The researchers characterized the spotted-tailed quoll as an opportunistic predator that varies its diet to take advantage of short-term fluctuations in prey abundance.2Journal of Zoology. Diet of the spotted‐tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) in eastern Australia: effects of season, sex and size This flexibility is a survival asset, but it has limits. When a preferred prey category crashes, quolls can shift, but they cannot always compensate fully.
How Wildfire Reshapes the Menu
The 2003 bushfires that tore through Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales provided a grim natural experiment in how quoll diets respond to catastrophic habitat disruption. Monitoring of prey populations revealed that brushtail possums, rabbits, and bandicoots were all significantly less abundant in the first winter after the fire.4Wildlife Research. Diet of a native carnivore, the spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus), before and after an intense wildfire Quolls responded by shifting their diet. Brushtail possum, normally the single most important prey item, dropped significantly in scats, while rabbit and hare consumption increased as lagomorph populations bounced back faster than possum populations.8UNSWorks. Impact of wildfire on the spotted-tailed quoll Dasyurus maculatus in Kosciuszko National Park
There was also a notable spike in large-mammal remains in scats during the first winter after the fire, which strongly suggested a short-term increase in the availability of carrion from animals killed or weakened by the blaze.8UNSWorks. Impact of wildfire on the spotted-tailed quoll Dasyurus maculatus in Kosciuszko National Park Small mammals also dropped out of the diet after the fire, likely because populations of bush rats and similar species collapsed in the burned landscape. The overall picture was one of resilience: quolls adapted to altered prey availability rather than starving. But this adaptability has a ceiling, and fires that are too frequent or too large could exhaust the prey base faster than quolls can adjust.
Scavenging and the Opportunistic Side
Quolls are often described as predators, but they are also enthusiastic scavengers. They will eat roadkill, livestock carcasses, and food scraps around campsites. Research has documented quolls scavenging human remains in forensic contexts, with scavenging appearing to be more likely in winter, when other food sources are limited.9Australian Mammalogy. Damage to human remains attributed to scavenging by quolls (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae) While that specific finding is primarily of forensic interest, it underscores a broader ecological point: quolls do not pass up free calories. They are cursorial hunters when hunting, actively running down prey or raiding dens, but they are also perfectly content to eat something that is already dead.
This scavenging tendency creates problems in areas where quolls encounter human food. Chicken coops are a well-known flashpoint, since a quoll that discovers an easy source of poultry rarely forgets it. Around campsites and rural properties, quolls can become habituated to human food waste, which draws them into conflict. The hunting instinct is also relevant here: quolls often exhibit surplus killing, dispatching more prey than they can eat in a single sitting. A quoll in a henhouse may kill several birds even though it can only carry off one.
The Cane Toad Problem
For northern quolls, one of the most dangerous things on the menu is the cane toad. Quolls are instinctive predators of frog-sized animals, and when cane toads invaded their range, northern quolls began eating them with devastating consequences. Research confirmed that Queensland northern quolls have not evolved resistance to cane toad toxins.10Wildlife Research. Queensland northern quolls are not immune to cane toad toxin A single adult cane toad can carry enough toxin to kill a quoll. The resulting population crashes across northern Australia have been among the most dramatic impacts of cane toad invasion on native predators.
The persistence of some northern quoll populations in toad-infested areas appears to rely on a combination of good habitat quality (supporting large quoll populations that can absorb losses) and behavioral aversion, where some individuals have learned or been taught to avoid eating toads.10Wildlife Research. Queensland northern quolls are not immune to cane toad toxin Conservation researchers have tried to accelerate this learning by feeding quolls small, non-lethal toad sausages laced with a nausea-inducing chemical. The idea is that if a quoll gets sick from a toad-flavored bait, it will avoid the real thing. Experiments with conditioned taste aversion showed that quolls associated the taste of toad meat with illness, reducing consumption of treatment baits from 92 percent to just 36 percent.11Applied Animal Behaviour Science. Taste overshadows less salient cues to elicit food aversion in endangered marsupial The quolls relied specifically on taste rather than visual or smell cues to avoid the baits, which is encouraging because real toads differ in appearance but presumably taste similar.
Competition With Foxes and Feral Cats
Quolls do not exist in an ecological vacuum. They share their landscape with introduced predators, particularly red foxes and feral cats, and all three predators have overlapping diets. Research on the spotted-tailed quoll found that dietary overlap among these carnivores was extensive, with medium-sized mammals being the most important prey for all three predators.12Journal of Applied Ecology. Niche overlap between marsupial and eutherian carnivores: does competition threaten the endangered spotted‐tailed quoll? When three predators in the same forest are targeting the same rabbits, possums, and bandicoots, competition for food is inevitable.
There are some differences that may help quolls coexist. Spotted-tailed quolls hunt different size classes of secondary prey compared to foxes and cats, and they eat more arboreal species like gliders and possums taken from tree hollows, prey that ground-hunting foxes and cats are less equipped to catch.12Journal of Applied Ecology. Niche overlap between marsupial and eutherian carnivores: does competition threaten the endangered spotted‐tailed quoll? Still, the overlap is strong enough that researchers concluded controlling introduced predators may benefit quolls not just by reducing predation on shared prey species, but by reducing direct competition for food. Fox-baiting programs, which are conducted in many quoll habitats, have the dual benefit of removing both a competitor and a potential predator of quolls themselves.
How Researchers Study Quoll Diets
Almost everything we know about quoll diets comes from analyzing scats, the polite ecological term for droppings. Researchers collect scats from known quoll latrine sites, den entrances, or along ridgelines and trails where quolls travel. Back in the lab, each scat is teased apart, and the contents are identified. Mammalian hair has species-specific cross-section patterns that can be matched under a microscope. Bones, teeth, feathers, insect exoskeletons, and scales all provide additional identification clues.
Scat analysis has limitations. It overrepresents prey with indigestible hard parts (insects, bones) and underrepresents soft-bodied prey like frogs or fruit. It also cannot always distinguish between prey that was actively hunted and prey that was scavenged as carrion. Newer molecular techniques, including DNA metabarcoding of scat contents, are beginning to supplement traditional methods. These approaches can identify prey species from degraded DNA fragments, picking up items that leave no visible trace in droppings. While most of the published DNA diet work in Australian marsupials has been applied to other species, the technology is increasingly being deployed for quoll research and promises a more complete picture of what these animals actually eat.
Fruit, Fungi, and the Non-Predatory Side
Though they are classified as carnivores, quolls are not strictly meat-eaters. Several quoll species consume plant material, including native fruits and berries. Northern quolls in particular have been observed eating figs and other soft fruits when they are seasonally available. This plant material tends to show up in scat studies at relatively low frequencies compared to animal prey, but it is consistent enough to suggest that fruit is a regular, if minor, part of the diet rather than an accidental ingestion. Some researchers have speculated that quolls may play a minor role in seed dispersal for certain native plants, though this has not been studied in detail.
Fungi also occasionally appear in quoll scats, though it is not always clear whether the fungi were eaten deliberately or ingested incidentally along with prey items. In the broader dasyurid family, to which quolls belong, true omnivory is unusual. Quolls sit at the more omnivorous end of the spectrum compared to their close relatives like Tasmanian devils and phascogales, but animal protein remains overwhelmingly the core of their nutrition.
Why Diet Matters for Reintroduction Programs
Several quoll species are the subject of active reintroduction and insurance-population programs. When quolls are released into new or restored habitat, one of the key unknowns is whether they can find enough to eat. A study tracking the diet of reintroduced quolls on mainland Australia found that they consumed macropods, small mammals, birds, invertebrates, fish, reptiles, and frogs, demonstrating an ability to locate and exploit prey in unfamiliar territory.1PubMed Central. Finding food in a novel environment: The diet of a reintroduced endangered meso-predator to mainland Australia, with notes on foraging behaviour There were some year-to-year differences in what prey categories turned up, reflecting the normal seasonal and stochastic variation in prey availability.
The ability of quolls to generalize across prey types is probably one of the reasons reintroduction programs have shown some early promise. A strict dietary specialist released into new habitat would face a much higher risk of starvation. Quolls, by contrast, seem able to explore their environment, test what is available, and adjust. That said, reintroduction sites still need to support adequate prey populations, and ongoing monitoring of what reintroduced quolls actually eat provides one of the best indicators of whether a site is sustaining a viable population or whether supplementary management is needed.