Bandicoots occur in Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and nearby islands. They are terrestrial, largely nocturnal, solitary animals that dig funnellike pits in their search for insect and plant food. Farmers consider them pests; some species are endangered, and all have declined.

The long-nosed bandicoot (Perameles, or Thylacis, nasuta), a vaguely ratlike brown animal whose rump may be black-barred, is the common form in eastern Australia. The three species of short-nosed bandicoots, Isoodon (incorrectly Thylacis), are found in New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania. Rabbit-eared bandicoots, or bilbies, are species of Thylacomys (sometimes Macrotis); now endangered, they are found only in remote colonies in arid interior Australia. As the name implies, they have big narrow ears, long hind legs, and bushy tails. The 35-centimetre- (14-inch-) long, pig-footed bandicoot (Chaeropus ecaudatus) of interior Australia has feet that are almost hooflike, with two toes functional on the forefoot, one on the hind foot. This herbivorous creature, resembling a little deer, is an endangered species and may well be extinct; it was last observed locally in the 1920s.