h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What's the matter? Couldn't come up with a picture of a quokka?

Yeah, I agree, what he said. This is a nice article that deserves a visible quokka.

I think it's in the works. I sent them links to pictures of them....

It is a good entry, though I'm not quite sure how to pronounce the name of the creature in question. Perhaps we need a pronunciation guide for the Guide??

It says in the entry that it rhymes with "soccer". I guess it's up to regional pronunciations at that point.

I just couldn't figure out which bit rhymed with soccer...
And the more I tried, the more my eyesight gets wobbly!

Quokka is pronounced exactly as it's spelt actually (oh, how sensible!!) . . . unfortunately, I can't remember how to write things phonetically, but if you say something like 'kwocka', you'll be close enough that the locals will understand you. Hope that helps!

I guess I should have figured that out on my own...

*hangs head sheepishly*

But in my part of the world we have Iroquois Indian names for a lot of stuff and that makes for some challenging pronunciations because they sound nothing like they're spelled....
- Susquehanna (Sus-KWA-han-na)
- Youghiogheny (Yock-a-GAIN-nee)
- Punxsutawney (PUNK-se-taw-nee)
- You get the idea! (Ow, my brain! )

In the past few years there have been a significant rise in the number of quokka sightings on the mainland, like most other native species they have benefitted hugely from the so called 'operation western shield', consisting mainly of poison baiting foxes with 1080, a toxin derived from native plants. Admittably your chances of seeing a quokka on the mainland are still about 1:10000 as opposed to about 1:1 on rottnest. Also of interest according to local stories about 100 years ago quokkas were indeed very common on mainland and were exploited by swagmen for their furs, the introduction of dogs foxes and cats decimated them along with many other native species.