The Southern Pig-footed Bandicoot once occurred in a wide variety of habitats. During the daytime, it sheltered in a grass-lined nest or a short straight burrow with a grass-lined nest at the end. In north-western Victoria, it occurred on grassy plains and in other places it favoured open woodland with a shrub and grass understorey. When disturbed, it often took refuge in a hollow log (Burbidge et al. 1988, Fisher 1988, Johnson and Burbidge 2008). Its diet included grass, bulbous roots, insects, and possibly other small vertebrates. More than any other bandicoot, the tooth and gut structures indicate a herbivorous diet, even a degree of grazing (Johnson and Burbidge 2008).

The Southern Pig-footed Bandicoot is now extinct, but formerly occurred in semi-arid and arid southern Australia from Carnarvon and the wheatbelt of south-western Australia (Abbott 2008) to western New South Wales and north-western Victoria (Johnson and Burbidge 2008; Travouillon et al. 2019, 2023).