[7] It is most closely related to the eastern barred bandicoot, the two species having diverged from one another in the late Pliocene.

[9] The species is distributed along the eastern coast of Australia from Cape York Peninsula in Queensland to New South Wales and Victoria.

[10] Widely distributed, it is classified as least concern on the IUCN Red List, with some localised decline in the southern part of its range.

[2] Although faring better than many other native mammal species in the face of human impact, the long-nosed bandicoot vanished from much of Sydney in the 1960s.

It is restricted to the outskirts such as the upper North Shore and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in the north, Blue Mountains in the west, Holsworthy in the southwest and Royal National Park in the south.

[11] The species is a common visitor to gardens of people living near Garigal and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Parks and are generally well received.

[17] Invertebrates make up most of the diet year-round, with spiders, caterpillars, leaves and seeds more common food items in summer and cicada larvae, blades of grass, bracts (tiny true leaves) of wattles, and underground items such as roots and fungi eaten more in winter.

[18] Long-nosed bandicoots spend much of their time digging,[16] and often leave characteristic conical holes in the ground where they have foraged looking for grubs in the soil.