Bandicoots are a group of more than 20

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of small to medium-sized, terrestrial, largely

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

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 ...

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that regularly consumes significant quantities of both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize t ...

s in the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Peramelemorphia. They are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the

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 ...

–

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

region, including the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about . History The first inhabitants of the archipela ...

to the east and

Seram Seram (formerly spelled Ceram; also Seran or Serang) is the largest and main island of Maluku province of Indonesia, despite Ambon Island's historical importance. It is located just north of the smaller Ambon Island and a few other adjacent i ...

and

Halmahera Halmahera, formerly known as Jilolo, Gilolo, or Jailolo, is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia, and Sofifi, the capital of the province, is located on the west coa ...

to the west.

Etymology

The bandicoot is a member of the order Peramelemorphia, and the word "bandicoot" is often used informally to refer to any peramelemorph, such as the bilby. The term originally referred to the unrelated Indian

bandicoot rat ''Bandicota'' is a genus of rodents from Asia known as the bandicoot rats. Their common name and genus name are derived from the Telugu language word ''pandikokku'' (పందికొక్కు). DNA studies have found the group to be a monop ...

from the Telugu word ''pandikokku'' (పందికొక్కు) wherein ''pandi'' means pig and ''kokku'' means rat.

Characteristics

Bandicoots have V-shaped faces, ending with their prominent noses similar to proboscides. These noses make them, along with bilbies, similar in appearance to elephant shrews and extinct leptictids, and they are distantly related to both mammal groups. With their well-attuned snouts and sharp claws, bandicoots are

fossorial A fossorial animal () is one that is adapted to digging and which lives primarily (but not solely) underground. Examples of fossorial vertebrates are Mole (animal), moles, badgers, naked mole-rats, meerkats, armadillos, wombats, and mole salamand ...

diggers. They have small but fine teeth that allow them to easily chew their food. Like most marsupials, male bandicoots have bifurcated penises. The

embryo An embryo ( ) is the initial stage of development for a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sp ...

s of bandicoots have a chorioallantoic placenta that connects them to the uterine wall, in addition to the choriovitelline placenta that is common to all marsupials. However, the chorioallantoic placenta is small compared to those of the

Placentalia Placental mammals ( infraclass Placentalia ) are one of the three extant subdivisions of the class Mammalia, the other two being Monotremata and Marsupialia. Placentalia contains the vast majority of extant mammals, which are partly distingui ...

, and lacks

chorionic villi Chorionic villi are Wiktionary:villus, villi that sprout from the chorion to provide maximal contact area with maternal blood. They are an essential element in pregnancy from a histology, histomorphologic perspective, and are, by definition, a pr ...

. Bandicoots can reach in length, and in weight. A bandicoot has a long, pointed snout, large ears, a short body, and a long tail. Its body is covered with fur that can be brown, black, golden, white, or grey in colour. Bandicoots have strong hind legs well adapted for jumping. Bandicoots also have low body temperatures and low basal metabolic rates which aides their survival in hot and dry climates. They also have low total water evaporative rate and effective panting mechanisms which further aid their survival in hotter temperatures.

Classification

Classification within the Peramelemorphia was previously thought to be straightforward, with two families in the order—the short-legged and mostly

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat n ...

bandicoots, and the longer-legged, nearly

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly mu ...

bilbies. In recent years, however, the situation clearly has become more complex. First, the bandicoots of the

n and far-northern Australian

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

s were deemed distinct from all other bandicoots and were grouped together in the separate family Peroryctidae. More recently, the bandicoot families were reunited in the

Peramelidae The marsupial family Peramelidae contains the extant bandicoots. They are found throughout Australia and New Guinea, with at least some species living in every available habitat, from rainforest to desert. Four fossil peramelids are described. O ...

, with the New Guinean species split into four genera in two subfamilies, Peroryctinae and Echymiperinae, while the "true bandicoots" occupy the subfamily Peramelinae. The only exception is the now-extinct pig-footed bandicoot, which has been given its own family, Chaeropodidae. * Order Peramelemorphia **Superfamily Perameloidea ***Unclassified family **** Genus ''† Galadi'': 4 species **** Genus ''† Bulungu'': 3 species **** Genus ''†Madju'': 2 species *** Family Thylacomyidae **** Genus '' Macrotis'': 2 species **** Genus ''†Ischnodon'': 1 species **** Genus ''†Liyamayi'': 1 extinct species *** Family †Chaeropodidae: Pig-footed bandicoot **** Genus ''†

Chaeropus ''Chaeropus'', known as the pig-footed bandicoots, is a genus of small marsupials that became extinct during the 20th century. They were the only members of the family Chaeropodidae in order Peramelemorphia (bandicoots and bilbies), with unusua ...

'': 1 species *** Family

**** Subfamily Peramelinae ***** Genus '' Isoodon'': short-nosed bandicoots, 3 species ***** Genus '' Perameles'': long-nosed bandicoots, 3 extant species **** Subfamily Peroryctinae ***** Genus '' Peroryctes'': New Guinean long-nosed bandicoots, 2 species **** Subfamily Echymiperinae ***** Genus '' Echymipera'': New Guinean spiny bandicoots, 5 species ***** Genus '' Microperoryctes'': New Guinean mouse bandicoots, 5 species ***** Genus '' Rhynchomeles'': Seram bandicoot, 1 species ** Superfamily † Yaraloidea *** Family † Yaralidae **** Genus †'' Yarala'': 2 species

Vernacular names

Bandicoots by Ochre Lawson at Waratah Mills station

The name bandicoot is an Anglicised version of a word from the Telugu language of South India which translates as 'pig-rat'. What are now called bandicoots are not found in India and bandicoot was originally applied to completely unrelated mammals—several species of large rats (

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the Order (biology), order Rodentia ( ), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and Mandible, lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal specie ...

s). Today, these species, belonging to the genera ''

Bandicota ''Bandicota'' is a genus of rodents from Asia known as the bandicoot rats. Their common name and genus name are derived from the Telugu language word ''pandikokku'' (పందికొక్కు). DNA studies have found the group to be a monop ...

'' and '' Nesokia'', are referred to as bandicoot rats. Robert Blust reconstructs the form *mansar or *mansər 'bandicoot' for Proto- Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (i.e., the reconstructed

most recent common ancestor A most recent common ancestor (MRCA), also known as a last common ancestor (LCA), is the most recent individual from which all organisms of a set are inferred to have descended. The most recent common ancestor of a higher taxon is generally assu ...

of the

Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages The Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (CEMP) languages form a proposed branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages consisting of over 700 languages (Blust 1993). Distribution The Central Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken in the Lesser Sun ...

) from related words like Oceanic Motu and Fijian , but the validity of this reconstruction is doubted by Schapper (2011). It is known as ''aine'' in the Abinomn language of Papua,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. Bandicoots have different names by the indigenous peoples of the Australia-New Guinea region. For example, the

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kau ...

people refer to the southern brown bandicoot as the ''bung'' or the ''marti''.

References

External links

* {{taxonbar, from1=Q15098051 Peramelemorphs Marsupials of Oceania Marsupials of Australia Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Western New Guinea