Lesser stick-nest rat
Lesser stick-nest rat | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Rodentia |
Family: | Muridae |
Genus: | Leporillus |
Species: | †L. apicalis
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Binomial name | |
†Leporillus apicalis (Gould, 1854)
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Synonyms | |
Hapalotis apicalis Gould.[2] |
The lesser stick-nest rat or white-tipped stick-nest rat (Leporillus apicalis) is an extinct
Behaviour
It accumulated large mounds of sticks to construct its nests, which were up to three metres long and a metre high. It was easily tamed, sometimes climbing onto tables to get sugar. It was also eaten by people. The last capture was filmed on 18 July 1933, when the stick-nests were set alight. The specimens are held in the South Australian Museum. The rat may have declined from competition with cattle and sheep. The reduction in available food sources also caused them to be more vulnerable to predators like owls.[3] There is a possibility that a lesser stick-nest rat was seen in a cave in Western Australia in 1970.
The last specimen was found at Mount Crombie.[1]
Gerard Krefft in 1862 wrote that he encountered the species in Euston, Bourke, and on both sides of the Murray and on the Darling. He could dislodge up to 15 individuals from a single tree and kept a large number of them in captivity. They were tame enough that any that escaped came back to join him for supper, "and help[ed] themselves, to damper especially". On a similar note, he also wrote that they themselves had "flesh white, tender, and well-tasted". Krefft tried to keep lesser-stick nest rats in a box with greater-stick nest rats but found that they kept fighting and that the former always remained victorious.[4]
Conservation status assessment
The 2008 release of the updated IUCN status for the lesser stick-nest rat downgraded the conservation status from
References
- ^ . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
- .
- ^ Copley, Peter. “Natural Histories of Australia’s Stick-Nest Rats, Genus Leporillus (Rodentia : Muridae).” Wildlife Research, vol. 26, no. 4, 1999, p. 513., doi:10.1071/wr97056.
- ^ Krefft, Gerard (1862). "On the Vertebrated Animals of the Lower Murray and Darling, their habits, economy, and geographical distribution". Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales, 1862-1865. Printed by Reading and Wellbank: 4.
External sources
- Flannery, Tim; Schouten, Peter (2001). A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals. Atlantic Monthly Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-87113-797-5.