Bandicoot

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Bandicoots
Temporal range:
Recent
Late Oligocene–Recent
Eastern barred bandicoot (Perameles gunni)
Eastern barred bandicoot (Perameles gunni)
Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Marsupialia
Clade:
Agreodontia
Order: Peramelemorphia
Superfamilies, etc.

See text.

Bandicoots are a group of more than 20 species of small to medium-sized, terrestrial, largely nocturnal

Seram and Halmahera
to the west.

Etymology

The bandicoot is a member of the

bilby.[2] The term originally referred to the unrelated Indian bandicoot rat from the Telugu word pandikokku (పందికొక్కు) wherein pandi means pig and kokku means rat.[3]

Characteristics

Bandicoots have V-shaped faces, ending with their prominent noses similar to proboscis. These noses make them, along with bilbies, similar in appearance to

elephant shrews and extinct leptictids, and they are distantly related to both mammal groups. With their well-attuned snouts and sharp claws, bandicoot are fossorial diggers. They have small but fine teeth that allow them to easily chew their food.[4]

Like most marsupials, male bandicoots have

bifurcated penises.[5]

The

uterine wall, in addition to the choriovitelline placenta that is common to all marsupials.[6] However, the chorioallantoic placenta is small compared to those of the Placentalia, and lacks chorionic villi
.

Bandicoots can reach 11 to 31 in (28 to 79 cm) in length, and 0.4 to 3.5 lb (0.18 to 1.6 kg) in weight. A bandicoot has a long, pointed snout, large ears, a short body, and a long tail. Its body is covered with fur that can be brown, black, golden, white, or grey in colour. Bandicoots have strong hind legs well adapted for jumping.

Bandicoots also have low body temperatures and low basal metabolic rates which aides their survival in hot and dry climates. They also have low total water evaporative rate and effective panting mechanisms which further aide their survival in hotter temperatures. [7]

Classification

Classification within the Peramelemorphia was previously thought to be straightforward, with two families in the order—the short-legged and mostly

pig-footed bandicoot
, which has been given its own family, Chaeropodidae.

Vernacular names

Waratah Mills light rail stop on Sydney's Inner West Light Rail line; public art by Ochre Lawson[16]

The name bandicoot is an Anglicised version of a word from the Telugu language of South India which translates as 'pig-rat'.[17] What are now called bandicoots are not found in India and bandicoot was originally applied to completely unrelated mammals—several species of large rats (rodents). Today, these species, belonging to the genera Bandicota and Nesokia, are referred to as bandicoot rats.

Blust[18][19][20][21] reconstructs the form *mansar or *mansər 'bandicoot' for Proto-Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (i.e., the reconstructed most recent common ancestor of the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages) from related words like Oceanic Motu mada and Fijian gwaca,[22] but the validity of this reconstruction is doubted by Schapper (2011).[23] It is known as aine in the Abinomn language of Papua, Indonesia.[24]

Bandicoots have different names by the indigenous peoples of the Australia-New Guinea region. For example, the Kaurna people refer to the southern brown bandicoot as the bung or the marti.[25][26]

References

  1. ^ Bandicoot. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 7 October 2020. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  2. ^ "Definition of bandicoot from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". Retrieved 7 September 2011.
  3. ISSN 0971-751X
    . Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  4. ^ "Bandicoots". Department of Environment and Science, Queensland. 17 September 2009. Archived from the original on 8 March 2020. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  5. ^ "Natural History Collections: Anatomical Differences". Nhc.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
  6. ISBN 978-0-8018-8695-9
    .
  7. ^ "Metabolic and ventilatory physiology of the Barrow Island golden bandicoot (Isoodon auratus barrowensis) and the northern brown bandicoot (Isoodon macrourus)". Journal of Thermal Biology. 33 (6): 337–344. August 2008.
  8. ^ Strahan, R. (1995). Mammals of Australia. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
  9. S2CID 86726840
    .
  10. S2CID 53525712
    .
  11. S2CID 140187280
    .
  12. ^ Travouillon, K.J., Beck, R.M.D., Hand, S.J., Archer, M. (2013). "The oldest fossil record of bandicoots (Marsupialia; Peramelemorphia) from the late Oligocene of Australia". Palaeontologia Electronica. 16 (2): 13A.1–13A.52.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. S2CID 14643777
    .
  14. ^ Stirton, R.A. (1955). "Late tertiary marsupials from South Australia". Records of the South Australian Museum 11, 247–268.
  15. S2CID 85622058
    .
  16. ^ Lawson, Ochre. "Warratah [sic] Mills Light Rail Station - Davis St entrance". ochrelawsonart.com. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
  17. ^ "Bandicoots". BushHeritageMVC. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
  18. ^ Blust, Robert. 1982. The linguistic value of the Wallace Line. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 138:231–50.
  19. ^ Blust, Robert. 1993. Central and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian. Oceanic Linguistics 32:241–93.
  20. ^ Blust, Robert. 2002. The history of faunal terms in Austronesian languages. Oceanic Linguistics 41:89–139.
  21. ^ Blust, Robert. 2009. The position of the languages of eastern Indonesia: A Reply to Donohue and Grimes. Oceanic Linguistics 48:36–77.
  22. ^ Blust, Robert; Trussel, Stephen (2010). "*mansar: bandicoot, marsupial rat". Austronesian Comparative Dictionary. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  23. S2CID 145482148
    .
  24. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7
    .
  25. ^ "Five facts about bandicoots". landscape.sa.gov.au. 28 July 2016. Archived from the original on 20 August 2021. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  26. ^ "CLICS³ - Concept BANDICOOT". clics.clld.org. Retrieved 2 March 2021.

External links

  • The dictionary definition of bandicoot at Wiktionary
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