Habbema New Guinea pouch mouse

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Habbema New Guinea pouch mouse
Systematics
Subclass : Marsupials (Marsupialia)
Superordinate : Australidelphia
Order : Raubbeutleriformes (Dasyuromorphia)
Family : Predator (Dasyuridae)
Genre : New Guinea bag mice ( Murexia )
Type : Habbema New Guinea pouch mouse
Scientific name
Murexia habbema
( Tate & Archbold , 1941)
Distribution area (brown)

The Habbema New Guinea marsupial mouse ( Murexia habbema ) is a species from the group of New Guinea marsupial mice within the family of predatory pouches (Dasyuridae) that occurs in the highlands of New Guinea .

features

The Habbema New Guinea pouch mouse is a medium-sized pouch mouse and has a uniform brownish color without being patterned by stripes or spots. Only the tail, on the underside of which there is a distinctive hair comb, is in most cases two-colored, with a dark top and a light underside. However, it can also be a single color, dark brown. The claws are slender and slightly curved. The Habbema New Guinea bag mouse reaches a head-trunk length of 11.2 to 12.2 (males) or 11 to 11.7 cm (females), has a 10.9 to 15.7 (males) or 11.9 to 14.3 cm (females) long tail and can reach a weight of 28.4 to 45.4 (males) or 22.7 to 31.2 g (females).

Way of life

It occurs in mountain forests, in beech forests and in subalpine grasslands at altitudes of 1,600 to 3,660 meters and prefers primary forests with heavy moss growth. The species can still be found in disturbed primary forests, but no longer in secondary forests . The Habbema New Guinea bag mouse is nocturnal and mainly hangs out on the ground. Underground cavities serve as resting places, from which they are only a few hundred meters away.

nutrition

Little is known about their diet and foraging. In 56 pouch mice caught on mountain slopes in Morobe Province in Papua New Guinea, 95% of the specimens had beetles in their stomachs. 87% had eaten spiders, 50% bedbugs , 41% moths and butterflies, 39% grasshoppers and crickets, 37% insects that could not be identified, 36% worms and 6% small vertebrates, including small mammals such as hair in their stomachs showed.

Reproduction

The Habbema New Guinea pouch mouse is likely to reproduce throughout the year regardless of the season. It nests in self-dug caves that can have one or two entrances and extend 80 cm to one meter into the ground. The nests are made up of interwoven leaves and fern leaves. Females have a well-developed pouch with four teats in which two to four pups reside after each birth. The mother nurses her young for three months or a little longer. Males become sexually mature after about ten months; there is no information on this for females.

Systematics

The Habbema New Guinea bag mouse was described in 1941 by the American zoologists George Henry Hamilton Tate and Richard Archbold under the scientific name Antechinus habbema . The type locality is north of Mount Trikora at an altitude of 2800 meters in western New Guinea. Molecular genetic studies of cytochrome b , of 12S rRNA genes and of protamine P1 sequences of all predatory pouches led to the fact that the Habbema New Guinea pouch mouse, together with all other New Guinea pouch mice, was separated from the Australian genus Antechinus and became a genus of its own ( Murexia ) were united. A study based on morphological investigations and published in 2002, however, came to the conclusion that the five species of New Guinea marsupial mice are not particularly closely related to each other or to any other group of predatory pouches, and the Habbema New Guinea marsupial mouse was placed in the monotypical genus Micromurexia . Another molecular genetic study from 2007, in which two further gene loci each of mitochondrial DNA and cell nucleus DNA were examined, confirmed the monophyly of Murexia . This view has since been adopted by the IUCN and has also found its way into the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (here Volume 5), a standard work on mammalogy .

The Habbema New Guinea bag mouse is divided into two subspecies, the nominate form Murexia habbema habbema in the Maoke Mountains and Murexia habbema hageni in the Bismarck Mountains .

Danger

The IUCN regards the population as secure and lists the species as not endangered (Least Concern).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Armstrong, LA, Krajewski, C. and Westerman, M. 1998: Phylogeny of the dasyurid marsupial genus Antechinus based on cytochrome-b, 12S-rRNA, and protamine-P1 genes. Journal of Mammalogy , Vol. 79: pp. 1379-1389.
  2. ^ Van Dyck, p. 2002: Morphology-based revision of Murexia and Antechinus (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 48: pp. 239-330.
  3. ^ Carey Krajewski, Roberta Torunsky, Justin T. Sipiorski, and Michael Westerman: Phylogenetic Relationships of the Dasyurid Marsupial Genus Murexia. Journal of Mammalogy 88 (3): 696-705. 2007, doi: 10.1644 / 06-MAMM-A-310R.1

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