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Fawn Antechinus
The fawn antechinus (''Antechinus bellus'') is a species of small carnivorous marsupial found in northern Australia. It is the only '' Antechinus'' to be found in the Northern Territory and has a patchy, restricted range. Taxonomy The earliest scientific collection of a fawn antechinus was made by John T. Tunney, and the first zoological description was made in 1904 by the renowned biologist Oldfield Thomas, who gave it the species name ''bellus'', meaning beautiful. It has never been confused with other species. It is a member of the family Dasyuridae and of the genus '' Antechinus'' (meaning "hedgehog-equivalent"), which has nine other members. Description The fawn antechinus is unique among antechinuses, being considerably paler than many of its relatives. It is a light grey colour and is distinguished from the only other similar species in the area where it lives (the sandstone dibbler and the red-cheeked dunnart) by its larger size and paler colouring. It is insectivorous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oldfield Thomas
Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time. He was appointed to the museum secretary's office in 1876, transferring to the zoological department in 1878. In 1891, Thomas married Mary Kane, daughter of Sir Andrew Clark, heiress to a small fortune, which gave him the finances to hire mammal collectors and present their specimens to the museum. He also did field work himself in Western Europe and South America. His wife shared his interest in natural history, and accompanied him on collecting trips. In 1896, when William Henry Flower took control of the department, he hired Richard Lydekker Richard Lydekker (; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history. Biography Richard Lydekker was born at Tavistock Square in London. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red-cheeked Dunnart
The red-cheeked dunnart (''Sminthopsis virginiae'') is so called because of the distinctive red hair on its cheek. It is an Australasian marsupial. Its total length is ; its average body length is with a tail of . Ear length is . Its weight varies between . Its tail is thin and pale pink. Distribution and habitat The red-cheeked dunnart is distributed in Australia and New Guinea. The nominate subspecies ''S. v. virginiae'' occurs in the Queensland around the North Gulf, NE coasts, Mackay to Cape York. Subspecies ''S. v. nitela'' inhabits the Kimberley's to the top of Northern Territory. Habitat includes woodlands, open rocky forests, savannah grasslands, swamps, soaks and margins of tropical forests. Social organisation and breeding The behaviour of the red-cheecked dunnart, like most ''Sminthopsis'' species, is not well known. They breed from October to March. Young are gestated for 15 days and weaned at 65–70 days with maturity by 4–6 months. Diet Its typical die ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marsupials Of Australia
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a pouch. Marsupials include opossums, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, wallabies, bandicoots, and the extinct thylacine. Marsupials represent the clade originating from the last common ancestor of extant metatherians, the group containing all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. They give birth to relatively undeveloped young that often reside in a pouch located on their mothers' abdomen for a certain amount of time. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur on the Australian continent (the mainland, Tasmania, New Guinea and nearby islands). The remaining 30% are found in the Americas—primarily in South America, thirteen in Central America, and one species, the Virginia opossum, in North America, nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Of The Northern Territory
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla (hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla (cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, together with Sauropsida ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dasyuromorphs
Dasyuromorphia (, meaning "hairy tail" in Greek) is an order comprising most of the Australian carnivorous marsupials, including quolls, dunnarts, the numbat, the Tasmanian devil, and the thylacine. In Australia, the exceptions include the omnivorous bandicoots (order Peramelemorphia) and the marsupial moles (which eat meat but are very different and are now accorded an order of their own, Notoryctemorphia). Numerous South American species of marsupials (orders Didelphimorphia, Paucituberculata, and Microbiotheria) are also carnivorous, as were some extinct members of the order Diprotodontia, including extinct kangaroos (such as ''Ekaltadeta'' and ''Propleopus)'' and thylacoleonids, and some members of the partially extinct clade Metatheria and all members of the extinct superorder Sparassodonta. The order contains four families: one with just a single living species (the numbat), two with only extinct species (including the thylacine and ''Malleodectes''), and one, the Dasyu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bininj
The Bininj are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Arnhem land in the Northern Territory. The sub-groups of Bininj are sometimes referred to by the various language dialects spoken in the region, that is, the group of dialects known as Bininj Kunwok; so the people may be named the Kunwinjku, Kuninjku, Kundjeyhmi (Gundjeihmi), Manyallaluk Mayali, Kundedjnjenghmi and Kune groups. Three languages are spoken among the Mirrar or Mirarr clan group, who are prominent in matters relating to looking after the traditional lands. The majority speak Kundjeyhmi, while others speak Gaagudju and others another language. History Aboriginal peoples have occupied the Kadadu area for about 65,000 years. The Macassans from Sulawesi had been in contact for trade purposes for centuries before the arrival of white civilization. They sailed down to exchange a variety of their goods for trepang, and the impact of their presence is evidenced by the retention in some Bininj Kunwok dialects o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top End
The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory is a geographical region encompassing the northernmost section of the Northern Territory, which aside from the Cape York Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Australian continent. It covers a rather vaguely defined area of about 245,000 km² (95,000 sq mi) behind the northern coast from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin across to Arnhem Land with the Indian Ocean on the west, the Arafura Sea to the north, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the east, and with the almost waterless semi-arid interior of Australia to the south, beyond the huge Kakadu National Park. The Top End contains both of the Territory's cities and one of its major towns, Darwin, Palmerston and Katherine. The well-known town of Alice Springs is located further south, in the arid southern part of the Northern Territory, sometimes referred to by Australians as the Red Centre. The landscape is relatively flat with river floodplains and grasslands with eucaly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insectivorous
A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were amphibians. When they evolved 400 million years ago, the first amphibians were piscivores, with numerous sharp conical teeth, much like a modern crocodile. The same tooth arrangement is however also suited for eating animals with exoskeletons, thus the ability to eat insects is an extension of piscivory. At one time, insectivorous mammals were scientifically classified in an order called Insectivora. This order is now abandoned, as not all insectivorous mammals are closely related. Most of the Insectivora taxa have been reclassified; those that have not yet been reclassified and found to be truly related to each other remain in the order Eulipotyphla. Although individually small, insects exist in enormous numbers. Insects make up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandstone Dibbler
The sandstone false antechinus (''Pseudantechinus bilarni''), also known as the sandstone pseudantechinus, the sandstone antechinus, the sandstone dibbler, Harney's antechinus and the Northern dibbler, is a species of small carnivorous marsupial, which has a patchy distribution in Australia's Northern Territory. Taxonomy The sandstone false antechinus was discovered in 1948 when it was collected on the American-Australian expedition to Arnhem Land. It was described in 1954, when it was given the species name ''bilarni'', which reflects the Aboriginal pronunciation of Bill Harney, an Australian writer and naturalist who accompanied the expedition. The species has at times been assigned to the genus ''Antechinus'', and was long believed to be a member of the genus ''Parantechinus''. The latter genus currently contains a single species, traditionally known as the dibbler (''Parantechinus apicalis'') in Southwest Australia, from which this species gained a common name of Northern d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a pouch. Marsupials include opossums, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, wallabies, bandicoots, and the extinct thylacine. Marsupials represent the clade originating from the last common ancestor of extant metatherians, the group containing all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. They give birth to relatively undeveloped young that often reside in a pouch located on their mothers' abdomen for a certain amount of time. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur on the Australian continent (the mainland, Tasmania, New Guinea and nearby islands). The remaining 30% are found in the Americas—primarily in South America, thirteen in Central America, and one species, the Virginia opossum, in North America, n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family (taxonomy), family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomy (biology), taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dasyuridae
The Dasyuridae are a family of marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea, including 71 extant species divided into 17 genera. Many are small and mouse-like or shrew-like, giving some of them the name marsupial mice or marsupial shrews, but the group also includes the cat-sized quolls, as well as the Tasmanian devil. They are found in a wide range of habitats, including grassland, underground, forests, and mountains, and some species are arboreal or semiaquatic. The Dasyuridae are often called the 'marsupial carnivores', as most members of the family are insectivores. Characteristics Most dasyurids are roughly the size of mice, but a few species are much larger. The smallest species is the Pilbara ningaui, which is from in length, and weighs just , while the largest, the Tasmanian devil, is long, and weighs from . The smaller dasyurids typically resemble shrews or mice in appearance, with long tails and narrow, pointed noses. The larger species bear a resemblance to such plac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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