''Bettongia anhydra'', also known as desert bettong, is a recently extinct species of

potoroine Potoroidae is a family of marsupials, small Australian animals known as bettongs, potoroos, and rat-kangaroos. All are rabbit-sized, brown, jumping marsupials and resemble a large rodent or a very small wallaby. Taxonomy The potoroids are s ...

marsupial.

Taxonomy

A skull collected in the 1930s that was placed as ''Bettongia penicillata anhydra'', and later regarded as a synonym of ''

Bettongia lesueur The boodie (''Bettongia lesueur''), also known as the burrowing bettong or Lesueur's rat-kangaroo, is a small, furry, rat-like mammal native to Australia. Once common throughout the continent, it is now restricted to a few coastal islands. A memb ...

''. The first description was by

Hedley Herbert Finlayson Hedley Herbert Finlayson (1895–1991) was an Australian mammalogist, author and photographer. Associated with the South Australian Museum, he is recognised for his extensive surveys and research on mammals in Central Australia and systematically ...

, published in 1957. An examination of morphology and molecular evidence proposed this specimen as the type of this new species. The type was collected from a fresh carcass at

Lake Mackay Lake Mackay, known as Wilkinkarra to the Indigenous Pintupi people, is the largest of hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes scattered throughout the Pilbara and northern parts of the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia and the Northe ...

in the western Northern Territory by Michael Terry in 1933. The phylogeny of the species separates this species and ''B. lesueur'' from lineages that emerged at a later period.

Description

A species of genus ''

Bettongia Bettongs, species of the genus ''Bettongia'', are potoroine marsupials once common in Australia. They are important ecosystem engineers displaced during the colonisation of the continent, and are vulnerable to threatening factors such as alter ...

'', small to medium sized mammals that are usually nocturnal and

fungivorous Fungivory or mycophagy is the process of organisms consuming fungi. Many different organisms have been recorded to gain their energy from consuming fungi, including birds, mammals, insects, plants, amoebas, gastropods, nematodes, bacteria and othe ...

. The dentary of ''Bettongia anhydra'' resembles that of the '' Potorous'' species and those of the bettong genus.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q51879014 Bettongia Extinct mammals of Australia Mammals described in 1957