An isolated population exists at the north-eastern part of the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, but all other surviving animals are found in the southern half of the country.

In New South Wales they are considered rare, and are primarily restricted to the extreme south-east of the state and to two national parks north of Sydney.

[5] Within these regions, southern brown bandicoots inhabit open forest, scrub, and heathland, especially where there is extensive ground cover by shrubs or mat-rushes.

[11] Southern brown bandicoots are nocturnal and omnivorous, feeding on insects, spiders, worms, plant roots, ferns, and fungi.

Because the skin of bandicoots is unusually thick, this results in hair loss, but little permanent injury to the defeated male.

[5] They spend much of the night searching for food, which the detect primarily by scent, sniffing the ground before digging into with their claws.

In many areas of its range the species is threatened locally, while it may be common where rainfall is high enough and vegetation cover is thick enough.

[2] It has been reintroduced to some lower rainfall areas where there is protection against cat and fox predation – one such site being Wadderin Sanctuary in the eastern wheatbelt of Western Australia, 300 km east of Perth.

In national assessment, the southern brown bandicoot is currently regarded as Endangered on the mainland as a whole, and Vulnerable in South Australia.