Foot-thumping is widespread among macropods and serves where visual signals fail. In closed rainforest a pademelon can rarely see more than a few metres, so a substrate-borne pulse reaches conspecifics that a raised head or flagged tail never would. The thump is often given as the animal turns to flee, so it combines alarm with the sound of departure.
Pademelons work a predictable geometry. They shelter in thick forest during the day and emerge onto adjacent grassy clearings to feed at dusk, rarely straying far from the edge and using established runways through the undergrowth to get back under cover fast. Individuals feeding in the open keep the forest margin within a short sprint.
What the thump means is less clear than it is often stated. It may be an alarm addressed to other pademelons, a signal to the predator that it has been detected, or simply a mechanical by-product of an explosive standing start, and the same thumping is also used in social and aggressive encounters between individuals.