Brush-tailed phascogale

Brush-tailed phascogale[1]
Conservation status
Near Threatened  (IUCN 3.1)[2]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Infraclass:	Marsupialia
Order:	Dasyuromorphia
Family:	Dasyuridae
Genus:	Phascogale
Species:	P. tapoatafa
Binomial name
Phascogale tapoatafa (Meyer, 1793)
Subspecies
P. tapoatafa tapoatafa   P. tapoatafa wambenger   P. tapoatafa kimberleyensis   P. pirata

The brush-tailed phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa), also known by its Australian native name tuan,

• P. t. tapoatafa, found in southeast Australia from South Australia to mid-coastal Queensland;
• P. t. wambenger, found in southwest Western Australia;
• P. t. kimberleyensis, found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

The subspecies that the population in Cape York Peninsula represents has yet to be identified.

Description

This phascogale is grey. Its tail is covered with long black hairs on the lower half that can erect, causing it to appear similar to a bottle brush.^[7] Body length is between 16 and 27 cm (6.3 and 10.6 in) with a 16 to 24 cm tail. Males, which can reach up to 310 grams (11 oz), are larger than females, normally weighing less than 210 g.^[8]

Distribution and habitat

The brush-tailed phascogale has a widespread but fragmented distribution throughout all states of Australia, excluding Tasmania. 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. The species is considered very vulnerable to localised extinction.^[9]

It is listed as a

Diet

This species is a nocturnal and arboreal hunter. It is an opportunistic generalist that predominantly eats invertebrates,^[10] though it also eats smaller mammals, birds, and lizards.^[7] It also drinks nectar from flowering trees.^[7] Consumption of bird eggs has also been recorded.^[11] The species has been reported to attack domestic poultry.^[12][13]

The Brush-tailed phascogale is a host of the

Breeding occurs between June and August when the females come into estrus. All male brush-tailed phascogales die before reaching one year of age, generally from stress-related diseases brought about by the energy expended in a bout of frenzied mating.[7] However, some captive males have lived to the age of three, though they were reproductively unviable after the first year.^[7] Females nest in hollow trees, bearing litters of 7 to 8 young which stay in the nest to the age of 5 months.

References