''Perameles'' is a genus of marsupials of 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
The order Peramelemorphia includes the bandicoots and bilbies. All members of the order are endemic to Australia-New Guinea and most have the characteristic bandicoot shape: a plump, arch-backed body with a long, delicately tapering snout, very ...
. They are referred to as long-nosed bandicoots or barred bandicoots.
''Perameles'', or ‘pouched badger’, is a
hybrid word
A hybrid word or hybridism is a word that etymologically derives from at least two languages. Such words are a type of macaronic language.
Common hybrids
The most common form of hybrid word in English combines Latin and Greek parts. Since m ...
, from the Greek (πήρα, ‘pouch, bag’) and the Latin (‘marten, badger’).
More than half the known recent species of ''Perameles'' have been driven to
extinction
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
, although these extinct species were long considered
conspecific
Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species.
Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...
with ''
P. bougainville'', a 2018 study determined them to be distinct species.
The extant species are:
*
Western barred bandicoot
The Western barred bandicoot (''Perameles bougainville''), also known as the Shark Bay bandicoot or the Marl, is a small species of bandicoot; now extinct across most of its former range, the western barred bandicoot only survives on offshore isl ...
(''P. bougainville'')
*
Eastern barred bandicoot
The eastern barred bandicoot (''Perameles gunnii'') is a nocturnal, rabbit-sized marsupial endemic to southeastern Australia, being native to the island of Tasmania and mainland Victoria (Australia), Victoria. It is one of three surviving bandi ...
(''P. gunnii'')
*
Long-nosed bandicoot
The long-nosed bandicoot (''Perameles nasuta''), a marsupial, is a species of bandicoot found in eastern Australia, from north Queensland along the east coast to Victoria. Around long, it is sandy- or grey-brown with a long snouty nose. omnivor ...
(''P. nasuta'')
*
Queensland barred bandicoot (''P. pallescens'')
The recently extinct species are:
*†
Desert bandicoot (''P. eremiana'')
*†
New South Wales barred bandicoot (''P. fasciata'')
*†
Southwestern barred bandicoot
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—eac ...
(''P. myosuros'')
*†
Southern barred bandicoot (''P. notina'')
*†
Nullarbor barred bandicoot (''P. papillon'')
Fossil species are,
*†''
P. allinghamensis''
*†''
P. bowensis''
*†''
P. sobbei''
*†''
P. wilkinsonorum''
References
External links
*ARKive
images and movies of the western barred bandicoot ''(Perameles bougainville)''
Peramelemorphs
Marsupials of Australia
Marsupial genera
Taxa named by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
{{marsupial-stub