Brush-tailed Phascogale

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iBrush-tailed Phascogale
Conservation status
Near Threatened (LR/nt)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Infraclass: Marsupialia Order: Dasyuromorphia Family: Dasyuridae Genus: Phascogale Species: P. tapaotafa
Binomial name
Phascogale tapaotafa (F. Meyer, 1793)

The Brush-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale tapaotafa), also known as the Tuan, is a rat-sized, arboreal carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae, characterized by a tuft of black silky hairs on the terminal portion of its tail. It has a widespread but fragmented distribution throughout all states of Australia, excluding Tasmania. All males die before reaching one year of age, generally from stress related diseases brought about by the energy expended in a bout of frenzied mating. Females nest in hollow trees, bearing litters of 7 to 8 young which stay in the nest to the age of 5 months. As a result of habitat destruction and predation by the red fox and feral cat, they are believed to have disappeared from roughly half of their former range.

[edit] References

• Groves, Colin (16 November 2005). Wilson, D. E., and Reeder, D. M. (eds): Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition, Johns Hopkins University Press, 32. ISBN 0-801-88221-4.

[edit] External links

• Page from the National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales, Australia
• PDFs/tsprofile_brushtailed_phascogale.pdf
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