The dusky rat (''Rattus colletti'') is an indigenous species of
rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...
in the family
Muridae found in Australia.
Name
Kunwinjku
The Kunwinjku (formerly written Gunwinggu) people are an Australian Aboriginal people, one of several groups within the Bininj people, who live around West Arnhem Land to the east of Darwin, Northern Territory. Kunwinjku people generally refer t ...
people of western
Arnhem Land call this animal ''mulbbu'', a name also applied to other rodent species. It was first described in 1904 by British zoologist
Oldfield Thomas.
Range
The rat is found only in the monsoonal subcoastal plains of 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 ...
,
Australia.
Predation
The dusky rat is eaten according to Peterson Nganjmirra
[Reverend Peterson Nganjmirra, personal comment in Goodfellow's, ''Fauna of Kakadu and the Top End'', 1993] and is prey to the Australian
water python (''(Liasis fuscus)'' also ranging across northern Australia.
References
*
Rattus
Mammals of the Northern Territory
Rodents of Australia
Mammals described in 1904
Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
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