''Antechinus arktos'', the black-tailed antechinus, is a species of small carnivorous

marsupial Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of marsupials' unique features is their reproductive strategy: the young are born in a r ...

native to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Taxonomy

The black-tailed antechinus was first described in 2014 by Baker and others and is one of the most recently described

s. It had previously been described as ''Antechinus swainsonii mimetes'', a

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of the

Dusky antechinus The dusky antechinus (''Antechinus swainsonii''), also known as Swainson's antechinus or the dusky marsupial mouse, is a species of small marsupial carnivore, a member of the family Dasyuridae. It is found in Australia. Taxonomy The dusky antec ...

. A member of the

dasyurid 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 ...

family, the Black-Tailed antechinus is a member of the genus ''

Antechinus ''Antechinus'' (// ('ant-echinus')) is a genus of small dasyurid marsupial endemic to Australia. They resemble mice with the bristly fur of shrews. Names They are also sometimes called 'broad-footed marsupial mice', 'pouched mice', or 'Ante ...

'', of which it is thought to be one of the most restricted members, located only at high altitudes in far north-eastern New south Wales and the adjoining ranges in south-eastern Queensland.

Description

Dr. Andrew Baker from the

Queensland University of Technology The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public university, public research university located in the city of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. It has two major campuses, a modern city campus in Gardens Point, Brisbane, Gardens Point ...

reports: "The tail emerges from a body that is very shaggy, very hairy, with really long guard hairs. On the rump of the animal it becomes almost an orangey-brown colour, but where the tail emerges from the rump there is quite a distinct change from orange rump to black tail. It's a very short-furred tail and they have black feet as well."

Distribution and habitat

The species has so far only been found in high-altitude, wet areas in the

Springbrook National Park The Springbrook National Park is a protected national park that is located in the Gold Coast hinterland of Queensland, Australia. The park is situated on the McPherson Range, near Springbrook, approximately south of Brisbane. The park is par ...

between northern New South Wales and the

Gold Coast Hinterland The Gold Coast hinterland is an area of South East Queensland, Australia that comprises the Tweed Range, Nimmel Range, Tamborine Mountain, Numinbah Valley, eastern parts of the McPherson Range and western parts of suburban Gold Coast, Queens ...

. Dr. Andrew Baker from the

reports that, though the species is already endangered, "it seems that the species may now be restricted to the highest parts of the Tweed Volcano Caldera, such as the upper parts of Springbrook where heysuccessfully captured the species in May 2013. The most likely explanation for such a contraction is climate change."

Mating habits

Dr. Diana Fisher from the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

reported in a study published last year in the ''Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' that:

. . . the animals were actually over-doing it in order to promote their own genes over their competitors' genes, and trying so hard to reproduce that their bodies shut down. "What they do is just competitively mate, so they mate for a very long time, like 12 to 14 hours, some of the species," she said. "They do it over and over and over - they're very promiscuous. There's this huge intense mating season going on for about two weeks."

Dr Fisher says the males experience an escalation of stress hormones, which allows them to continue mating for a long time. But the researchers found the extreme rush of stress hormones also caused the animals' body tissues to "disintegrate".

"It's a bit distressing to see them die. Their fur falls off. They look very sick and stagger around, and sometimes they get gangrene infections because their immune system stops working."

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15778682 Dasyuromorphs Mammals described in 2014 Mammals of Queensland Marsupials of Australia