The brush-tailed phascogale (''Phascogale tapoatafa''), also known by its Australian native name tuan, the common wambenger, the black-tailed mousesack or the black-tailed phascogale, is a rat-sized

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. The habitats pose nu ...

carnivorous

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 ...

of the family

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 th ...

, characterized by a tuft of black silky hairs on the terminal portion of its tail. Males of this species do not live past the age of one, as they die after reproducing.

Taxonomy

The brush-tailed phascogale was first described by

Friedrich Meyer Friedrich may refer to: Names * Friedrich (surname), people with the surname ''Friedrich'' * Friedrich (given name), people with the given name ''Friedrich'' Other * Friedrich (board game), a board game about Frederick the Great and the Seven Year ...

in 1793; George Shaw published a revised description in 1800. For some time it was considered a member of the opossum genus ''

Didelphis ''Didelphis'' is a genus of New World marsupials. The six species in the genus ''Didelphis'', commonly known as Large American opossums, are members of the ''opossum'' order, Didelphimorphia. The genus ''Didelphis'' is composed of cat-sized om ...

'', but this ended in 1844 when Coenraad Jacob Temminck erected the genus ''

Phascogale The phascogales (members of the eponymous genus ''Phascogale''), also known as wambengers or mousesacks,A Hollow Victory
...

''. The species is closely related to the

red-tailed phascogale The red-tailed phascogale (''Phascogale calura''), also known as the red-tailed wambenger, red-tailed mousesack or kenngoor, is a small carnivorous marsupial found in inland areas of south-western Western Australia, and has been reintroduced in ...

(''P. calura''). Its scientific name, ''tapoatafa'', is a reference to an

indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

name for the species. It has sometimes been known as ''Phascogale penicillata'', referring to its brushed tail. In 2015 three subspecies were identified, and the previous subspecies ''P. t. pirata'' was confirmed as a separate species ''P. pirata'': *''P. t. tapoatafa'', found in southeast Australia from South Australia to mid-coastal Queensland; *''P. t. wambenger'', found in southwest Western Australia; *''P. t. kimberleyensis'', found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The subspecies that the population in Cape York Peninsula represents has yet to be identified.

Description

This phascogale is grey. Its tail is covered with long black hairs on the lower half that can erect, causing it to appear similar to a bottle brush. Body length is between with a 16 to 24 cm

tail The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammal ...

Males Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to ...

, which can reach up to , are larger than

females Female (symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females ...

, normally weighing less than 210 g.

Distribution and habitat

The brush-tailed phascogale has a widespread but fragmented distribution throughout all states of Australia, excluding

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

. As a result of

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

and predation by the red fox and feral

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

, they are believed to have disappeared from roughly half of their former range. The species is considered very vulnerable to localised

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

. It is listed as a

vulnerable species A vulnerable species is a species which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being threatened with extinction unless the circumstances that are threatening its survival and reproduction improve. Vulnera ...

on Schedule 2 of the

Threatened Species Conservation Act Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensa ...

, 1995 (TSC Act, NSW). However 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 ...

lists it only 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 f ...

, and it does not have an

EPBC Act The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cultu ...

status.

Diet

This species is a nocturnal and arboreal hunter. It is an opportunistic generalist that predominantly eats invertebrates, though it also eats smaller mammals, birds, and lizards. It also drinks nectar from flowering trees. The species has been reported to attack domestic poultry. The Brush-tailed phascogale is a host of the

Acanthocephala Acanthocephala (Greek , ', thorn + , ', head) is a phylum of parasitic worms known as acanthocephalans, thorny-headed worms, or spiny-headed worms, characterized by the presence of an eversible proboscis, armed with spines, which it uses to p ...

n intestinal parasite ''

Australiformis semoni Moniliformidae is a family of parasitic spiny-headed (or thorny-headed) worms. It is the only family in the Moniliformida order and contains three genera: ''Australiformis'' containing a single species, ''Moniliformis'' containing eighteen specie ...

''.

Reproduction

Breeding occurs between June and August when the females come into estrus. All male brush-tailed phascogales die before reaching one year of age, generally from stress-related diseases brought about by the energy expended in a bout of frenzied mating. However, some captive males have lived to the age of three, though they were reproductively unviable after the first year. Females nest in hollow trees, bearing litters of 7 to 8 young which stay in the nest to the age of 5 months.

References

External links

Brush-tailed Phascogale
the National Parks and Wildlife Service of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia.
"Writing their names in ink"
Brush-tailed phascogale survey,

Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife The Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife is an Australian not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation that was incorporated on 29 June 1970. Its purpose is to foster the protection of Australia's native plants, animals and cultural heritag ...

.
Foundation of National Parks and Wildlife Brush-tailed Phascogale Project
Brush-tailed Phascogale information and image

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Brush-Tailed Phascogale Dasyuromorphs Mammals of the Northern Territory Mammals of Western Australia Mammals of South Australia Mammals of New South Wales Mammals of Queensland Mammals of Victoria (Australia) Marsupials of Australia Mammals described in 1793