The Carpentarian dunnart (''Sminthopsis butleri'') also known as Butler's dunnart is a

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 ...

with a puffy brown or mouse grey colour above and the underside of white, similar to its close relative the Kakadu dunnart. Head to anus length is 75-88mm with a tail of 72-90mm long for a total length of 147-178mm. Weight varies from 10-20g depending on a variety of factors including sex, food abundance, habitat etc.

Distribution and habitat

Found in the Northern Kimberley's near Kalumburu in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

and Bathurst and Melville Island in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

. Habitat consists of

eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as e ...

and melaleuca forest with sandy soils up to and including 20 km from the coast. Also present on the island of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

. In New Guinea found in grasslands and savannah in west of the island.

Social organisation and breeding

May breed in the dry season but needs more study.

Diet

No information, but most likely insects and small vertebrates.

References

* *

External links

Australian Biological Resources StudyAustralianfauna.com
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050719131018/http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/recovery/p-mimulus-s-butleri-n-aquilo/pubs/p-mimulus-s-butleri-n-aquilo.pdf#search='Carpentarian%20Dunnart' Recovery plan]
Threatened species of the Northern Territory
{{Taxonbar, from=Q134084 Dasyuromorphs Marsupials of New Guinea Mammals of Western Australia Mammals of the Northern Territory Marsupials of Australia Mammals described in 1979