The fawn antechinus (''Antechinus bellus'') 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 ...

found in northern

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 ...

. It is the only ''

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 ...

'' to be found in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

and has a patchy, restricted range.

Taxonomy

The earliest scientific collection of a fawn antechinus was made by John T. Tunney, and the first zoological description was made in 1904 by the renowned biologist

Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for ...

, who gave it the species name ''bellus'', meaning beautiful. It has never been confused with other species. It is a member 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 ...

and of the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

'' (meaning "hedgehog-equivalent"), which has nine other members.

Description

The fawn antechinus is unique among antechinuses, being considerably paler than many of its relatives. It is a light grey colour and is distinguished from the only other similar species in the area where it lives (the sandstone dibbler and the red-cheeked dunnart) by its larger size and paler colouring. It is

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores we ...

and, like many of its relatives, all of the males die after the breeding season. The fawn antechinus has a breeding season during August. Young are born in September–October in litters of up to ten, and are usually weaned by January.

Distribution and habitat

The fawn antechinus is found in the

Top End The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory is a geographical region encompassing the northernmost section of the Northern Territory, which aside from the Cape York Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Australian continent. It covers a ...

of the

, where it was once fairly common. It inhabits tall, fairly open forest in the tropics. Populations have declined substantially since European colonisation, with one study in the Northern Territory finding a 20% reduction in the extent of occurrence of and a 45% reduction in the breadth of occupied environmental space.

In Aboriginal language and culture

The Kunwinjku people of western Arnhem Land call this animal mulbbu, as they do many small marsupials and rodents.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q135411 Dasyuromorphs Mammals of the Northern Territory Marsupials of Australia Mammals described in 1904 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas