Short-tailed hopping mouse

Short-tailed Hopping Mouse
Conservation status
Extinct  (1896)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Subclass:	Eutheria
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Muridae
Genus:	Notomys
Species:	N. amplus
Binomial name
Notomys amplus Brazenor, 1936

The Short-tailed Hopping Mouse (Notomys amplus) is an extinct species of mouse from open stony (gibber) plains with desert grasses, low shrubs and sand ridges in the area around Charlotte Waters, near Alice Springs in Central Australia. It weighed 80 grams. The last record is from June 1896. Only two complete specimens were collected, probably from Aborigines. It was largest of all Australian Hopping-mice recorded in Australia; at the weight of 100 g it was twice the mass of any other species of Hopping-mice. This species was predominantly brown in colour, its tail probably being as long as its body. The Short-tailed Hopping Mouse's decline was due to a number of factors, some of which were being hunted by predators such as foxes, cats and habitat alterations.

External source

• Flannery, Tim & Schouten, Peter (2001). A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals. Atlantic Monthly Press, New York. ISBN 0-87113-797-6. 
• Northern Territory Government, Chris Pavey

[May 2006] Threatened species of Northern Territory

References