Changes In Macropodoid Communities And Populations In The Past 200 Years, And The Future

This paper presents tables which summarize probable changes in populations of Australian Macropodoidea, and probable causes, since white settlement. Of 50 species, 30 have suffered declines in range and/or numbers and 14 are thought to have increased or remained essentially stable. Six species have declined to extinction and an additional four are extinct on the mainland. Only about half, 28 species, remain common where they now occur. Habitat changes are likely to be the major causative agents of change, whether positive or negative; the most important are the clearing of forests, pastoralism and grazing. Feral animals may have been significant in the decline of five species. Despite the losses, the full range of macropod genera is still well represented, by good luck rather than good management. Tree-kangaroos, Hare-wallabies and Nailtaill Wallabies are most in need of active conservation if diversity is to be preserved

The status of Australian mammals in 1922 - Collections and field notes of museum collector Charles Hoy

Charles Hoy, a collector for the US Museum of Natural History, spent three years in Australia (1919-1922) collecting at more than a dozen locations around Australia. He collected over one thousand specimens of mammals of more than 100 species. This paper collates the species collected by location and provides detailed quotes from his field notes and letters. Typically, his field notes and letters describe his collecting localities, detail what fauna he was able to collect, detail what additional fauna he had expected to collect, and speculate on the major land use changes impacting on the fauna. His letters and field notes provide valuable insights into the status of the Australian fauna and the perceived threats to its persistence at that time. He recorded a range of threats to mammals in temperate Australia, and singled out the desert fauna as being particularly vulnerable. In contrast, he recorded few threats in tropical Australia. Introduced foxes and cats, poisoning and trapping techniques to control rabbits, land clearing and hunting in localized areas, and regular burning of the forests were important factors in temperate Australia. He provides information of the timing of decline of mammals, distinguishing animals in the size category of the larger native rodents (the first to decline) and those the size of small wallabies (a subsequent decline). His fieldwork indicated an approximate synchrony in decline of medium-sized mammals at two distant locations (Eyre Peninsula in South Australia and Tamworth in New South Wales) in the period 1915-1918, which coincided with the eruptive wave of the fox invasion. In addition, he recorded the decline of specific species that he attributes to a combination of disease and predation from feral cats (the native cats Dasyurus spp.) or predominantly to disease (koala Phascolarctos cinereus)

Re-evaluation of the holotype of Mus ruber Jentink, 1880 (Rodentia: Muridae) from western New Guinea (Irian Jaya)

INTRODUCTION The first rodent from the New Guinea region, now included in the genus Rattus, to be formally named, was Mus ruber Jentink, 1880. The name R. ruber is currently in widespread use (Lidicker, 1968, 1973; Lidicker & Ziegler, 1968; Misonne, 1969; Ziegler, 1971; Bulmer & Menzies, 1972, 1973; Menzies, 1973; Dwyer, 1975), several subspecies from areas throughout New Guinea and adjacent islands have been placed under it (Tate, 1951; Laurie, 1952; Laurie & Hill, 1954), and some of these are among the most abundant and widespread endemic rats in the entire region. Furthermore, populations identified as nominate ruber and various other subspecies have on earlier occasions been shifted at the generic level or have been linked with other groups of Rattus. In fact the various forms currently placed in R. ruber represent a complex of species. A detailed analysis of the situation will be published at a future date (Taylor, Calaby and Van Deusen, ms). Several assessments of species of Rattus endemic to New Guinea have been made, of which none has seriously questioned the endemicity or validity of R. ruber as a distinct taxon represented by Jentink's holotype. Jentink (1880) remarked that the holotype had very soft fur with no trace of spines, and that it resembled Mus neglectus (= R. rattus), a point not pursued by later investigators, some of whom (e.g. Ellerman) never even examined the specimen. THE TYPE SPECIMEN The holotype consists of a mounted specimen (Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Cat. syst. a) and skull (RMNH Cat. ost. a), reg. nr. 26067. It is not known whether any field collecting label ever existed, but th

Further observations on the mountain pygmy possum (Burramys parvus)

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