Broad-faced potoroo

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Broad-faced potoroo[1]
Temporal range: Recent
↓
Stuffed specimen at the Natural History Museum Pisa

Extinct (c. 1875)  (IUCN 3.1)[2]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Marsupialia
Order: Diprotodontia
Family: Potoroidae
Genus: Potorous
Species:
†P. platyops
Binomial name
†Potorous platyops
(Gould, 1844)[3]

The broad-faced potoroo (Potorous platyops) is an extinct

Southwest Australia
.

The habitat of the broad-faced potoroo is almost entirely unknown, but unlike its relatives, such as the long-nosed potoroo

Potorous longipes
, they do not seem to have lived in dense understories in forests. Preserved specimens indicate that it was smaller than other potoroos at around 300 mm (1 ft) long with a 180-mm tail. Their weight is estimated at 800 g. Their coat was grizzled with yellowish hairs above and greyish white below. Their body was similar in shape to that of other potoroids. Their ears were small and rounded, muzzle fairly short, and cheeks notably puffy.

Taxonomy

The first description was published by John Gould,[3] using a specimen obtained by his collector John Gilbert at "Walyema Swamps near Northam, Western Australia".[4] Gilbert visited this inland region while collecting around the recently established Swan River Colony. The site he referred to was determined to be Lake Walyormouring.[5]

The single specimen forwarded to Gould was presented to the

British Museum of Natural History.[3][5]
There were few collected after Gould's initial description. There was one animal collected by James Drummond and recorded in a letter in the 1840s, the collector George Masters prepared four specimens in the 1860s, presumably when he made a large collection of taxa at Mordup. The last collection of living Potorous platyops was in 1874, collected by William Webb and are now held at the Macleay Museum in Sydney.[6]

Curator and collector

B. Arthur Bensley (1903) whose descriptions of P. platyops are recorded at the BMNH.[8][9][10]

Common names include broad-faced potoroo and a name from the

Nyungar language, moda,[11] which was recorded by Gilbert and noted in Gould's 1844 description as mor-da, and mort or moort by other ecologists writing shortly after its extinction.[3] The name was obtained through an interview with Nyungar peoples at King George Sound by Gilbert.[12][6] Early records show that it was also named the broad-faced rat kangaroo.[13]

Description

Mammals of Australia
(1863)

The broad-faced potoroo is a member of the genus

Potorous. It is described as having a relatively broad skull and shorter muzzle.[14][12]
The species is presumed to have become extinct sometime after the last recorded capture of the animal in 1875, and sometime before 1905.

The colour of the

rufous bettong (Aepyprymnus rufescens) and the desert rat-kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris).[15]

Ecology

The behaviour of the species has not been recorded,[14] and nothing is known of its diet. The scant record of its habitat includes those provided by John Gilbert's informants, one of whom said, "All I could glean of its habits was that it was killed in a thicket surrounding one of the salt lagoons in the interior".[16]

An assessment of documents prior to the 20th century concluded the only ecological change to affect the population were anecdotal reports of a "disease", similar to one that had resulted in the sudden absence of similar species. A synthesis combining other historical evidence proposes what may have been an epizootic during the 1890s that precipitated their extinction. No historical evidence could be found to link the conclusion of South African collector Guy C. Shortridge, writing in 1910, that ecological changes such as bushfire and the introduction of cats were directly linked to the species' decline.[6][17]

Guy Shortridge searched extensively for this species on his collecting expedition near

Nyungar informants—was that the species became extinct in 1905, were similar to the quokka in range and habits, and had been commonly found and often captured in large quantities.[17][6] The remains were examined the following year, along with the remains of a dibbler, which was found along with the P. gilbertii remains in a deposit beneath a moving dune system. Another set of bones were found in an midden beneath a large peppermint (Agonis flexuosa), which was assumed to be the feeding roost of a predatory bird such as an owl. This site, near Hunter River, was partly preserved by a sand dune and included species introduced after the colonisation of Australia, possibly placing the date of these remains within recent history.[18][6] Sub-fossil remains identified as P. platyops were also found in a survey of deposits on the Eyre Peninsula, accumulations that may have been middens of pre-colonial peoples of the region.[19]

Distribution

The few records of live specimens are restricted to Southwest Australia. The species could have already been near-extinct when Gilbert obtained his specimen, and no specific localities are known with any certainty.[14][16]

Sub-fossil remains indicate a wide distribution range, extending from the southern to the western regions of Australia, including Nullarbor Plain
, and perhaps as far north as the Northwest Cape region. Remains have also been found on Kangaroo Island.[16][6]

Some evidence indicates that P. platyops, like the desert-dwelling rat-kangaroo (

Caloprymnus campestris), was already in decline when the invasive European rabbit became established in the species' former range.[16]

References

  1. OCLC 62265494
    .
  2. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-2.RLTS.T18103A21960570.en
    . Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d Gould, J. (1844). "Exhibition and character of a number of animals, &c. transmitted from Australia by Mr. Gilbert". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1844: 103–104. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  4. ^ Claridge 2007, p. 5.
  5. ^ a b c "Species Potorous platyops (Gould, 1844)". Australian Faunal Directory. Australian Government. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Abbott, I. (2008). "Historical perspectives of the ecology of some conspicuous vertebrate species in south-west Western Australia" (PDF). Conservation Science W. Aust. 6 (3): 42–48.
  7. Finlayson, H. H. (1938). "On a new species of Potorous (Marsupialia) from a cave deposit on Kangaroo Island, South Australia"
    . Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. 62: 132–140.
  8. ^ Thomas, O. (1888). Catalogue of the Marsupialia and Monotremata in the collection of the British Museum (Natural History). London: Printed by order of the Trustees. p. 116.
  9. Bensley, B. A. (1903). "On the Evolution of the Australian Marsupialia ; with Remarks on the Relationships of the Marsupials in general"
    . Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 2. 9: 147–150.
  10. Waterhouse, G. R. (1846). A Natural History of the Mammalia. London: H. Baillière. pp. 231
    –232.
  11. Species Profile and Threats Database
    .
  12. ^ a b Abbott, Ian (2001). "Aboriginal names of mammal species in south-west Western Australia". CALMScience. 3 (4): 451.
  13. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1908.00783.x
    .
  14. ^
    ISBN 9780195573954
    .
  15. ^ Claridge 2007, p. 28.
  16. ^ a b c d Claridge 2007, pp. 17, 19, 84.
  17. ^
    Shortridge, G. C. (1910). "An account of the geographical distribution of the marsupials and monotremes of southwest Australia, having special reference to the specimens collected during the Balston Expedition of 1904-1907"
    . Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1909. Academic Press, [etc.]: 803–848.
  18. ^ Butler, W. H.; Merrilees, D. (1971). "Remains of Potorous platyopus (Marsupialia, Macropodidae) and other mammals from Bremer Bay, Western Australia". Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia. 54: 53–58.
  19. doi:10.1071/AM09020
    .

Sources

External links
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