The bronze quoll (''Dasyurus spartacus'') is a species of

quoll Quolls (; genus ''Dasyurus'') are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. They are primarily nocturnal and spend most of the day in a den. Of the six species of quoll, four are found in Australia and two in New Guinea. Anoth ...

found only in the

Trans-Fly savanna and grasslands The Trans Fly savanna and grasslands are a lowland ecoregion on the south coast of the island of New Guinea in both the Indonesian and Papua New Guinean sides of the island. With their monsoon and dry season climate these grasslands are quite di ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

and West Papua.

History

It was discovered in the early 1970s when five specimens were collected, but only described in 1987 when Dr. Stephen Van Dyck of the

Queensland Museum The Queensland Museum is the state museum of Queensland, dedicated to natural history, cultural heritage, science and human achievement. The museum currently operates from its headquarters and general museum in South Brisbane with specialist mu ...

examined them and recognised their distinctness. there are twelve public museum specimens, 8 from traps and 4 from local hunters. It is the largest surviving

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 po ...

carnivore A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

of New Guinea, after the

thylacine The thylacine ( , or , also ) (''Thylacinus cynocephalus'') is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The last known live animal was captured in 1930 in Tasman ...

's extirpation from New Guinea thousands of years ago.

Taxonomy

Very little is known of it; it was previously thought to be an outlying population of the

western quoll The western quoll (''Dasyurus geoffroii'') is Western Australia's largest endemic mammalian carnivore. One of the many marsupial mammals native to Australia, it is also known as the chuditch. The species is currently classed as near-threatened. ...

(''Dasyurus geoffroii'').

Status

, there was an estimated population of less than 10,000 and was listed as

Near Threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify fo ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. A

nocturnal Nocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed sens ...

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

, it inhabits

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

woodlands. It is threatened by introduced predators like domesticated and

feral A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...

dogs, and feral cats. It has been observed in

Wasur National Park The Wasur National Park forms part of the largest wetland in Merauke Regency, South Papua, Indonesia and has been one of the least disturbed by human activity.

and

Tonda Wildlife Management Area The Tonda Wildlife Management Area is a wetland of international importance and the largest protected area in Papua New Guinea.

References

Dasyuromorphs Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Western New Guinea Mammals described in 1987 Endemic fauna of New Guinea Marsupials of New Guinea {{marsupial-stub