Rio Tinto | Minerals and Metals for the world

On the trail of the itjaritjari
He is a mole and he lives in a hole, and he is blind, probably deaf and maybe almost extinct. Getting to know this mysterious mole is a typical challenge for Rio Tinto adventurers. Helen Plummer looks at the Group's partnership with Earthwatch.

Digging trenches in the soft red sands of South Australia's Great Victoria Desert for two weeks, while living under canvas with a night temperature that frequently drops below freezing, cooking on a campfire, foregoing hot showers and other creature comforts, sounds on paper a little like a busman's holiday for Michael Tutt. He's a horticulturalist at Hamersley's Dampier port whose day job involves, among other things, digging trenches for irrigation systems.

Michael's voluntary two week sojourn in the outback was as part of a research project to investigate the conservation ecology and habits of the itjaritjari, a little known, and possibly endangered, marsupial mole found only in the deserts of Australia. It's little known because it spends almost its entire life underground, tunnelling through the sand and living on other subterranean creatures like grubs, ants and termites.

This elusive palm sized creature surfaces rarely, briefly, and for unknown reasons - one of the aims of the study is to establish the purpose for these visits above ground. Suspicions are that the population of this mole is in decline, something that is in part attributed to non indigenous predators like the fox and cat, as well as to changes in the landscape.



On the trail of the itjaritjari He is a mole and he lives in a hole, and he is blind, probably deaf and maybe almost extinct. Getting to know this mysterious mole is a typical challenge for Rio Tinto adventurers. Helen Plummer looks at the Group's partnership with Earthwatch. Digging trenches in the soft red sands of South Australia's Great Victoria Desert for two weeks, while living under canvas with a night temperature that frequently drops below freezing, cooking on a campfire, foregoing hot showers and other creature comforts, sounds on paper a little like a busman's holiday for Michael Tutt. He's a horticulturalist at Hamersley's Dampier port whose day job involves, among other things, digging trenches for irrigation systems. Michael's voluntary two week sojourn in the outback was as part of a research project to investigate the conservation ecology and habits of the itjaritjari, a little known, and possibly endangered, marsupial mole found only in the deserts of Australia. It's little known because it spends almost its entire life underground, tunnelling through the sand and living on other subterranean creatures like grubs, ants and termites. This elusive palm sized creature surfaces rarely, briefly, and for unknown reasons - one of the aims of the study is to establish the purpose for these visits above ground. Suspicions are that the population of this mole is in decline, something that is in part attributed to non indigenous predators like the fox and cat, as well as to changes in the landscape.
PAGE 1 OF 7

Review is published by Rio Tinto, 6 St James' Square, London SW1Y 4LD, England Telephone +44 (0)20 7930 2399 Editor: Cherry DeGeer