Long-nosed Baggers
| Long-nosed Baggers | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tasmanian long-nosed bucket ( Perameles gunnii ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Perameles | ||||||||||||
| É. Geoffroy , 1803 |
The long-nosed pouches ( Perameles ) are a genus of marsupials from the group of the Australian nasal pouches . The genus includes eight species, including four extinct.
description
Long-nosed rabbits are physically reminiscent of long-nosed rabbits . Characteristic are the elongated, pointed snout, the large, pointed ears and the rather short tail. Their fur is yellowish, brown or gray in color; most species are also identified by a series of light horizontal stripes on the back of the body. Long-nosed pouches reach a head body length of 20 to 42 centimeters, a tail length of 8 to 17 centimeters and a weight of 0.2 to 1.9 kilograms.
Distribution and way of life
The animals were originally distributed in large parts of Australia , but have disappeared from most of their range. They inhabit a number of habitats, but primarily dry areas such as semi-deserts and savannas. But sometimes you can also find them in forests.
Long-nosed beetles are nocturnal. During the day they sleep in nests made of twigs and leaves, in self-dug burrows or in abandoned burrows of other animals, at night they go in search of food. To do this, they often dig in the ground to find something to eat, primarily insects and their larvae. In addition, they also consume worms, snails, small vertebrates and plant material such as roots and berries.
The animals are loners who react extremely aggressively, especially to same-sex conspecifics. They inhabit a fixed territory, whereby the territories of the males are significantly larger than those of the females and thus also overlap. Outside the mating season, however, males and females also avoid each other.
Reproduction
Long-nosed beetles are very fertile, but also have a high death rate among young animals. The female can give birth up to four times a year, the litter size is usually two or three young and the gestation period is very short at 12 to 13 days. The young spend their first 50 to 60 days of life in their mother's pouch, and sexual maturity occurs after three to five months. Some females can have two litters themselves in the year in which they were born. Life expectancy is short, it is two to three years.
threat
Long-nosed poults have been threatened to a greater extent than other marsupials since the arrival of Europeans in Australia. The reasons for this lie in the loss of their habitat due to conversion into agricultural areas and in the stalking by introduced predators such as cats or foxes . Two of the six species are already extinct, two more are endangered, and two species are considered non-threatened.
The species
Big long-nosed bagler
The large long-nosed pouch ( Perameles nasuta ) is the largest species of its genus with a weight of 0.5 to 2 kilograms. Its fur is uniformly gray-brown in color and does not show the horizontal stripes typical of the other species. The species is widespread in eastern Australia (eastern Queensland , New South Wales and Victoria ), in contrast to the other long-nosed sacs, its habitat is forests, in Queensland also rainforests. As the only representative of the long-nosed buccaneers, it is relatively common and not yet endangered.
Tasmanian long-nosed butler
The Tasmanian long-nosed bucket ( Perameles gunnii ) reaches a head body length of up to 34 centimeters and a weight of 450 to 900 grams. The light horizontal stripes on the back of the body are characteristic of him. It lives in open wooded areas and grasslands in Tasmania and in the south of Victoria . The populations on the mainland are seriously threatened, but a breeding and resettlement program is showing initial success. The species is more common in Tasmania, but the population is declining. The IUCN lists the species as endangered.
Striped long-nosed bag
The striped long-nosed pouch ( Perameles bougainville ) is the smallest species of its genus, weighing only 200 to 250 grams. Its fur is gray-brown and has light horizontal stripes on the back of the body. Original habitat of the striped long-nosed beetle were heathland and dry regions in large parts of southern Australia. The species has been extinct on the mainland since the 1930s and now only lives on two small islands ( Bernier and Dorre Island Nature Reserve ) off the coast of Western Australia . According to the IUCN , the species is endangered .
Perameles pallescens
This taxon was described by Oldfield Thomas in 1923 as a subspecies of Perameles nasuta . In 2016 it was given species status by Kenny J. Travouillon .
Extinct species
The desert long-nosed bucket ( Perameles eremiana ) is extinct. It used to be found in the arid interior of Australia, in the southern Northern Territory , in northern South Australia and in eastern Western Australia . The destruction of its habitat as well as the reenactment by imported predators are the reasons for the extinction of this species, of which a specimen was last seen in 1943. Perameles papillon was described in 2018 based on material from the Natural History Museum and the Western Australian Museum . The species was found in the Nullarbor Plain and was eradicated by foxes in the 1940s. Perameles myosuros was considered a mainland population for a long time and was therefore a synonym for Perameles bougainville . In 2018 it received species status again. It occurred on the Swan River in Western Australia and died out in the early 20th century. Other extinct species are Perameles sobbei from the Pleistocene and Perameles bowensis from the Pliocene . The latter may have to be assigned to the short-nosed butts ( Isoodon ).
literature
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World . Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999 ISBN 0-8018-5789-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kenny Travouillon, 2016. Investigating dental variation in Perameles nasuta Geoffroy, 1804, with morphological evidence to raise P. nasuta pallescens Thomas, 1923 to species rank. Zootaxa 4114 (4): 351-392. DOI: 10.11646 / zootaxa.4114.4.1
- ↑ Kenny Travouillon & Matthew J. Phillips, 2018. Total evidence analysis of the phylogenetic relationships of bandicoots and bilbies (Marsupialia: Peramelemorphia): reassessment of two species and description of a new species . Zootaxa 4378 (2), 224-256. DOI: 10.11646 / zootaxa.4378.2.3