A Hawkesbury resident may have stumbled upon one of the most exciting zoological finds of the decade - a small marsupial previously thought to be extinct on Australia's mainland. East Kurrajong resident and Hawkesbury Gazette newspaper employee Nicole Palmer was driving along Roberts Creek Road recently when she spotted a couple of unusual-looking animals. "There was two of them. One was smaller. I pulled up and the larger one kept hopping towards the car so I strated rolling back down the hill and honking my horn," she said. "They were both dark brown with white spots around its jowl and neck area, 3-4 inches of the tip of its tail was white and it didn't look like a tiger quoll, it was much smaller and less heavy." From her description, NPWS ranger Vickii Lett and University of Western Sydney biologist Professor Rob Close believe Ms Palmer may have spotted two Eastern quolls. Eastern quolls are about the size of domestic cats with pointed noses and soft fawn, brown or black-coloured fur broken up by white spots, and a bushy tail with a white tip.

They are much smaller than their cousins, the endangered Spotted-tail or 'Tiger' quoll, which has a coarse, reddy-brown coat with white spots and is half as big again as the eastern quoll. The eastern quoll was last sighted on the mainland in the 1960s in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse. Since that time dogs, cats and people have encroached on the small marsupial's habitat to the extent that they are now believed to be extinct on the mainland. However, Eastern quolls remain prolific in Tasmania, preferring to live in dry grassland and forest bordering farm paddocks. Ms Lett said National Parks would be acting on the sighting of the protected species.

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