The internet is better with quokkas

Australia is home to an awesome array of predators. With all our venomous snakes, spiders, sharks and stingrays, it’s a wonder there’s any of us left.

Unfortunately the nasties seem to have hogged the limelight. But that’s changing fast, thanks to this little guy: the quokka. West Australians have been mates with the quokkas for a long time, but they rose to international stardom in 2013 with the hashtag #quokkaselfie.

Since then, they’ve established themselves as some of the cutest, happiest, most photogenic critters on earth, making their way into thousands of photos (and hearts) on social media.

Look out for us at WWW2016 in Montreal and get your own quokka selfie with the next best thing to a real, live quokka: a WWW2017 official plush quokka!

Find us at WWW2016 in Montreal, take a selfie with one of our plush quokkas, give us your details and you’ll be in the running to win one of 5 day passes from Perth to Rottnest, redeemable in 2017.

Meet the real thing!

Quokkas are found mainly on Rottnest Island, which is a short ferry ride from the Perth coast. Rottnest, so named because Dutch explorers (rather impolitely) mistook quokkas for rats (or “rotte” in 17th century Dutch) is a small island with a permanent population of only 100 people, and the only mode of transport is bicycle.

There has been a movement to rename the island Wadjemup, the name given to it by indigenous Noongar people long before white settlement.