The mountain pygmy possum is so rare that it was known only from fossils until 1966, when skiers on Mount Hotham in Victoria, Australia, found one scampering around the woodpile at their ski lodge. That was an ironic twist of fate, since the expansion of ski resorts is one of the threats to the survival of the remaining 2,000-3,000 possums found on just a few Australian mountains today.

Another problem creeping up on the possums (as well as the skiers) is climate change, which freezes some possums in their hibernating burrows as reduced snow cover from warming increases the animals’ exposure to icy winter winds. Increased drought, meanwhile, is causing catastrophic declines in fat-rich bogong moths, one of the mountain pygmy